Rushdie happy with his stay in Iceland

"I've been meaning to come to Iceland for a long time, so I'm glad I finally made it and I've had a great time here. Thank you to everyone who has welcomed me," said the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie after receiving the Halldórs Laxness International Literary Award at Háskólabíó yesterday.

This was the fourth time the award has been given and a ceremony was held which started at 17.30 yesterday.

Bjarni Benediktsson presented the Rushdie Award, which is a monetary award in the amount of 15,000 euros with prize money in addition.

Next there was a a discussion where Rushdie sat down with Halla Oddný Magnúsdóttir and Halldór Guðmundsson.

Always wanted to be a writer

There, Rushdie spoke widely and discussed, among other things, that the dream of becoming a writer had followed him since he was a child, that nothing else had ever been considered, although his interest in acting had certainly been ignited in his teenage years.

Rushdie also discussed an attack he suffered in August 2022 where he was stabbed multiple times while preparing for a lecture in New York. He lost his vision in one eye after the attack.

Rushdie said that the recovery process had been long and he wasn't sure if he would write about the incident. He did, however, and the book Knife was published, which has the subtitle "Meditations After an Attempted Murder."