Written before the U.S. knife attack that nearly took the Indian-born author’s life, the novel purports to be a translation of a historical epic originally written in Sanskrit.
The much-anticipated work according to Agency report tells the tale of a young orphan girl Pampa Kampana, who is endowed by a goddess with magical powers and founds the city, in modern-day India, of Bisnaga, which translates as Victory City.
The author has spoken for the first time about being stabbed last year at an event in New York. In an interview, Sir Salman said he was “lucky… my main overwhelming feeling is gratitude.”
The award-winning novelist was attacked on stage ahead of a speech in August and spent six weeks in hospital. He subsequently lost vision in one eye.
Rushdie has long faced death threats for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
In a wide-ranging interview with David Remnick, the novelist said: “I’ve been better. But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad.
“The big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.”
But he said it was difficult to type and to write due to a lack of feeling in some of his fingertips.
“I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean, there are bits of my body that need constant check ups. It was a colossal attack.”
He said he also has mental scars from the attack and that he is having to rethink his approach to security, having lived without it for more than two decades.
“There is such a thing as PTSD, you know,” he said. “I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really.”
The man suspected of stabbing Sir Salman, Hadi Matar, has been charged with attempted murder. He was forced into hiding for nearly 10 years after The Satanic Verses was published in 1988.
Many Muslims reacted with fury to it, arguing that the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad insulted their faith. He faced death threats and the then-Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa – or decree – calling for his assassination, placing a $3m (£2.5m) bounty on the author’s head.
The fatwa remains active, and although Iran’s government has distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, a quasi-official Iranian religious foundation added a further $500,000 (£416,000) to the reward in 2012.
Remnick asked Rushdie if he thinks he should have been more on guard after moving to New York in 2000, having previously lived underground for several years.
“Well, I’m asking myself that question, and I don’t know the answer to it,” he said. “I did have more than 20 years of life. So, is that a mistake? Also, I wrote a lot of books.”
Rushdie will not promote his 15th novel because of his physical condition, although his agent, Andrew Wylie, told The Guardian that his “recovery is progressing.”
The attack shocked the West but was welcomed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan.
While not personally promoting the book, Rushdie has begun to communicate on the social network Twitter, most often to share press reviews of his new novel.
Several events are also planned to accompany its release, including a conference with writers Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman, which will be broadcast online.
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