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Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie, best known for 'Midnight's Children' and 'The Satanic Verses', will be honoured with Liberatum's 14th Cultural Honour at a ceremony in London on July 8, as the international cultural diplomacy organisation marks its 25th anniversary, according to Variety.
The honour recognises Rushdie's literary legacy while reaffirming Liberatum's commitment to defending freedom of expression. This year's event is centred on the belief that free speech is facing growing challenges across the world. According to the organisers, the Cultural Honour celebrates artists and thinkers whose work has expanded cultural and intellectual boundaries. Rushdie joins a list of previous recipients that includes architect Zaha Hadid and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. The ceremony comes months after Rushdie's story reached new audiences through the documentary Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, directed by Alex Gibney, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary includes never-before-seen footage related to the August 2022 attack on Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York by Hadi Matar, as well as video diaries filmed by his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, during his recovery. Reflecting on the documentary at Sundance, Rushdie told Variety, "People should see what terrorism looks like and experience it." The London event is expected to bring together prominent figures from literature, film, journalism and the arts. Confirmed guests include director Richard Eyre, filmmaker Asif Kapadia, journalist and documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux, director Terry Gilliam and BAFTA-winning filmmaker Amma Asante, as per the outlet. The guest list also features historian and biographer Antonia Fraser, media executive and former Vanity Fair and The New Yorker editor Tina Brown, acclaimed Indian contemporary artist Bharti Kher, poet, novelist and visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths, The Independent editor-in-chief Geordie Greig, and Indian filmmaker Mozez Singh. Organisers said the diverse gathering of artists, writers, filmmakers and journalists underscores the many forms of creative expression that deserve protection and celebration. Rushdie survived the near-fatal stabbing in August 2022 and has since continued writing and speaking publicly. In 2024, he published Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, a memoir reflecting on the attack and its aftermath. His latest work, The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories, adds to a literary career spanning 23 books translated into more than 40 languages. The ceremony will take place at Town Hall, a restored cultural venue housed within the former Camden Town Hall building in London's King's Cross district. Redesigned by Tom Dixon, the venue spans more than 60,000 square feet and has emerged as a prominent destination for cultural events in the British capital, according to Variety. (ANI)
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