Salman Rushdie, the Booker Prize-winning author of “Midnight’s Children” and “The Satanic Verses,” will be presented with Liberatum’s 14th Cultural Honor at a ceremony in London on July 8.
The event simultaneously marks the international cultural diplomacy organization’s 25th anniversary.
Liberatum, founded in 2001, positions the honor as both a tribute to Rushdie’s literary legacy and a public statement on freedom of expression. The evening’s theme reflects the organization’s view that free expression is under greater threat – in more places and more ways – than at any point in recent memory.
The ceremony comes months after Rushdie’s story reached new audiences through “Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie,” Alex Gibney’s Sundance documentary that includes never-before-seen footage of the August 2022 stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, in which Rushdie was attacked by Hadi Matar. The film also draws on video diaries shot in Rushdie’s hospital room in the days after the attack by his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths. “People should see what terrorism looks like and experience it,” Rushdie told Variety at Sundance.
Confirmed guests representing the world of film and television include director Richard Eyre, filmmaker Asif Kapadia, journalist and filmmaker Louis Theroux, and director Terry Gilliam. BAFTA-winning filmmaker Amma Asante is also among those attending.
