02/08/2026: The Indomitable Margaret Atwood, Knife, Officially Amazing

Summary

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60 Minutes (CBS News) – February 9, 2026

Episode: "The Indomitable Margaret Atwood, Knife, Officially Amazing"

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Episode Overview

This episode of 60 Minutes presents a special edition of the "60 Minutes Book Club," exploring the lives, legacies, and challenges of major literary figures through candid interviews and in-depth storytelling. The spotlight falls on Margaret Atwood, fiercely addressing book banning; Salman Rushdie, recounting his attack and recovery; and the indefatigable Guinness World Records team and record-breakers. The episode blends thoughtful discussion on censorship, resilience, creativity, and human eccentricity, all captured in the signature unflinching yet warm 60 Minutes style.

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Key Segments and Insights

1. Margaret Atwood: The Unstoppable Titan of Literature

(Begins ~03:35)

Atwood vs. Book Censorship

• John Wertheim introduces Atwood as "an 86-year-old titan of literature," noting her status as Canada’s best-known author with 64 books and counting, many now banned in over 135 U.S. school districts – notably "The Handmaid’s Tale," "The Testaments," and "The Blind Assassin."

• Atwood symbolically torched an ‘unburnable’ edition of "The Handmaid’s Tale" to protest censorship, benefiting PEN America.

  "The government put out an edict to all school boards saying there couldn't have any books in the library that had either direct or indirect sex. What is indirect sex? Science fiction, indirect sex. Lately, second wave feminism." – Margaret Atwood [05:13]

Atwood’s Voice and Wit

• Atwood displays her trademark humor and wisdom, answering questions about her career milestones with a refrain: "Over 50."

  "How many books have you written? Over 50. How many awards have you won? Over 50." – John Wertheim & Margaret Atwood [05:41]

• Explains the roots of her dystopian visions in historical fact, not mere imagination:

  "If it didn't happen somewhere at some time, it doesn't make it into the pages of my fiction." – Margaret Atwood [08:13]

The Canadian Experience & Literary Genesis

• Atwood shares anecdotes of her unconventional upbringing – tracking insects with her entomologist father – and how it shaped her writing:

  "Growing up with a biologist makes you quite particular about details. You're not saying that's a butterfly; you're saying, 'What kind of butterfly?'" – Margaret Atwood [09:34]

• Recollects her college life as a performer, and her lifelong focus on specificity and research.

• Discusses her late partner Graham Gibson and blended family dynamics in reading from her memoir "Book of Lives" [12:26], revealing a frank, almost self-mocking inner voice:

  "Oh, for heaven's sakes, count your blessings... Suck it up. Cherish your child. Get another cat." – Margaret Atwood, reading her advice to herself [13:05]

Political Commentary & The Handmaid’s Legacy

• Responds to questions about the political implications of her work, especially relating to contemporary U.S. events and the rollback of reproductive rights:

  "Had it been so that none of this ever got enacted, then it would probably be sitting on a shelf somewhere and people would be saying, 'jolly good yarn.' But it didn't happen." – Margaret Atwood [06:55]

• Highlights the dangers of totalitarian overreach and the warning signs for democracy in America today:

  "There are certain things that totalitarian coups always do. One is trying to get control of the media... making the judicial arm part of the executive." – Margaret Atwood [15:12]

• Atwood distinguishes herself from left/right political binaries, noting she’s been more criticized from the left for not fully endorsing their agenda:

  "The right thinks I'm irrelevant and the left thinks that I should have been preaching their sermon... I am therefore a traitor." – Margaret Atwood [15:57]

Closing on Atwood

• With a characteristic blend of warmth and deadpan, Atwood softens her “Medusa-like” persona for the interviewer:

  "Now, I’m a nice old lady, so you don't have to be worried." – Margaret Atwood [16:38]

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2. Salman Rushdie: Life, Death, and “Knife”

(Begins ~18:49)

Introduction: Surviving Fatwa and Knife Attack

• Explains background: Rushdie, targeted by a 1989 fatwa over "The Satanic Verses," lived a decade under police protection, eventually moving to the U.S.
• In 2022, Rushdie was attacked at a literary event, suffering life-threatening injuries. This is his first comprehensive TV interview since the incident.

Premonition and Day of Attack

• Rushdie recounts a prophetic nightmare days before being stabbed:

  "I had a dream of being attacked in an amphitheater…with a spear… I woke up quite shaken by it. And I said to my wife Eliza, I said, you know, I don't want to go. Because of the dream." – Salman Rushdie [19:46]

• Describes the attack:

  "The last thing my right eye would ever see, I saw the man in black running towards me… My first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was, 'So it's you, here you are.'" – Salman Rushdie [23:20]

• The attack lasted 27 seconds, during which Rushdie sustained 15 wounds.

Facing Mortality and Recovery

• Rushdie’s account of near-death is strikingly stoic:

  "I remember thinking that I was probably dying. And it was interesting because it was quite matter of fact… No heavenly choirs, no pearly gates. I mean, I'm not a supernatural person… death comes as the end." – Salman Rushdie [26:07]

• On not naming his attacker:

  "I don't want his name in my book, and I don't use it in conversation either. He and I had 27 seconds together, that's it. I don't need to give him any more of my time." – Salman Rushdie [26:46 and 26:55]

• The recovery process involved basic communication by toe wiggles, and profound uncertainty about his future faculties.

Writing as Reclamation

• Rushdie reflects on using writing to regain agency over his narrative:

  "Language was my knife... Maybe this was the knife I could use to fight back, to take charge of what had happened to me, to own it, make it mine." – Salman Rushdie [30:32]

• Admits he had no choice but to write "Knife":

  "That was the last thing I wanted to do… But it became clear to me that I couldn't write anything else… I had to write this first." – Salman Rushdie [30:02 and 30:18]

Life After Trauma

• The episode closes with Rushdie reflecting on his changed life:

  "I don't feel I'm very different, but I do feel that it has left a shadow. I think that shadow is just there. And some days it's dark, and some days it's not." – Salman Rushdie [31:15]

• The attacker was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison [31:55].

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3. Guinness World Records: "Officially Amazing"

(Begins ~32:38)

The Method to Record-Breaking Madness

• Chronicles the enduring success and global fascination with Guinness World Records (150 million copies sold in 40 languages).

• Cecelia Vega and editor-in-chief Craig Glenday, guide the audience through the strict adjudication process, colorful records, and human motivation behind record-setting.

  "We do validate people that do things that others might seem a bit weird, like eating aircraft and stuff." – Craig Glenday [02:28, repeated at 37:54]

• Tells stories of records ranging from skateboarding dogs to a man eating a Cessna airplane, to grueling feats like largest pizza party.

  "Cutest babies and cutest dogs don't make the cut either. Records must meet strict criteria… Each year, Guinness World Records receives roughly 50,000 applications, but as many as 95% get rejected." – Narrator/Host [35:10]

Adjudicators and the Human Element

• Introduces Thomas Bradford, Guinness adjudicator, noting his Disney performer day job and pizza party stress:

  "I had to turn away people that were dressed as Godzilla because Godzilla is not a dinosaur." – Thomas Bradford [42:06]

• Describes how record attempts are both meticulously serious and joyously communal, highlighting the largest pizza party in New Haven:

  "Participants get 15 minutes to eat two slices of pizza and drink a bottle of water. But here's the catch. They have to stay until the party is officially over, and they must eat the entire pizza. No one can leave their crusts." – Thomas Bradford [42:56]

• New Haven succeeds, breaking the record with 4,525 people.

  "Congratulations New Haven. You are all officially amazing and a slice of history." – Thomas Bradford [44:57]

Finding Meaning in Record-Breaking

• Glenday summarizes the deeper purpose behind record mania:

  "Human beings are nearly the same everywhere… they're trying to get through from birth to death and have as much fun and enjoy life and get all the experiences that you can. And we see this every day. The world is full of these amazing fun things if you just look in the right place." – Craig Glenday [45:06]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Margaret Atwood on Censorship:
  "What is indirect sex?" [05:13]
• Margaret Atwood on her process:
  "If it didn't happen somewhere at some time, it doesn't make it into the pages of my fiction." [08:13]
• Salman Rushdie on the Attack:
  "So it's you, here you are." [23:20]
• Rushdie on mortality:
  "There was nothing. No heavenly choirs, no pearly gates... I believe that death comes as the end." [26:07]
• Craig Glenday on weird records:
  "We do validate people that do things that others might seem a bit weird, like eating aircraft and stuff." [37:54]
• Thomas Bradford on pizza party:
  "They must eat the crust." [42:56]
• Glenday on universal humanity:
  "The world is full of these amazing fun things if you just look in the right place." [45:06]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Margaret Atwood segment: 03:35–17:05
• Salman Rushdie segment: 18:49–31:55
• Guinness World Records segment: 32:38–45:06

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Episode Conclusions

This episode stands out for its blend of literary gravitas, hard-won personal resilience, and cheerful oddity. Atwood’s battle with censorship frames art’s role in society, Rushdie’s harrowing tale reclaims agency through creativity, and the Guinness World Records segment finds a touching universality in playful obsession. Throughout, 60 Minutes conveys both gravity and humor: "Officially amazing," indeed.

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Transcript

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[John Wertheim]

Tonight on this special edition of 60 Minutes presents the 60 Minutes Book Club. Here she is taking a flamethrower to her own book. Margaret Atwood was firing back at would be book burners. Her books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corruption, anti Christian.

[Margaret Atwood]

The government put out an edict to all school boards saying that they couldn't have any books in the library that had either direct or indirect sex. What is indirect sex?

[Anderson Cooper]

Did people try to kill you?

[Salman Rushdie]

Yes.

[Anderson Cooper]

Author Salman Rushdie has been a marked man for nearly half his Life and in 2022 a knife wielding attacker almost killed him. This is his first television interview.

[Salman Rushdie]

One of the surgeons who had saved my life said to me, he said first you were really unlucky and then you were really lucky. I said, what's the lucky part? He said, well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife.

[Narrator/Host]

Whether it's this attempt at the biggest pizza party ever or trying to eat an airplane, there's a method to the madness of getting into Guinness World Records. It's as many as 90 75% of submissions get rejected.

[Craig Glenday]

We do validate people that do things that others might seem a bit weird like eating aircraft and stuff.

[Narrator/Host]

Do you not see that as weird?

[Craig Glenday]

I see it as really interesting.

[Narrator/Host]

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[John Wertheim]

Good evening, I'm John Wertheim. Welcome to the 60 Minutes Book Club. Tonight we'll hear author Salman Rushdie discuss Knife, his book based on the near fatal attempt on his life at a literary event in 2022. Then we'll tell you about the book that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. But we begin with a question of sorts of you're an 86 year old Titan of literature. Have been for a half century. Now you're Canada's best known author, 64 books and counting. And increasingly, you find your work on lists of banned books scrubbed from 135American school districts. Yes, that includes your breakthrough work, the dystopian novel the Handmaid's Tale. But you've also been censored for work like the Testaments and the Blind Assassin, both of which won the Booker Prize, the top award for English language fiction. What to do? Sure, you take to the keyboard and write sternly worded opinion pieces, but as we first told you last fall, if you're the indomitable Margaret Atwood, you don't stop there. Here she is taking a flamethrower to her own book. Atwood was firing back at would be book burners by torching an unburnable edition. It was all promotion for a charity auction to benefit Pan America, a non profit that champions free speech. Atwood's books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt, anti Christian. She told us she was particularly peeved when a recent ban came from Edmonton, Alberta. In her own country, the government put.

[Margaret Atwood]

Out an edict to all school boards saying there couldn't have any books in the library that had either direct or indirect sex. What is indirect sex? Science fiction, indirect sex. Lately, second wave feminism.

[John Wertheim]

Here Atwood speaks as she writes with a mix of wisdom and deadpan wit. Last fall she invited us into her Toronto home. Do you know offhand how many languages your books have been translated in?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, we say over 50 for everything. How old are you? Over 50. How many books have you written?

[John Wertheim]

Over 50 how many awards have you won?

[Margaret Atwood]

Over 50.

[John Wertheim]

I thought so.

[Narrator/Host]

Under His Eye. Under his eye.

[John Wertheim]

Published in 1985, the Handmaid's Tale depicts a near future America overtaken by religious dictatorship, where a dwindling number of fertile women are forced to cloak themselves in red and bear children for the elite.

[Salman Rushdie]

Give me children or else I die.

[John Wertheim]

The book would sell more than 10 million copies and spawn an Emmy winning Hulu series. Beyond that, its scarlet costume would become a uniform of real life protest and resistance. Shame. Shame. Handmaid's Tale is your magnum opus. You think you're Great Gatsby. How are you with that?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, I would question the premise.

[Salman Rushdie]

You would?

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah. It's not due to me or the excellence of the book. It's partly the twists and turns of history.

[John Wertheim]

With the ongoing rollback of reproductive rights and the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade In 2022, the Handmaid's Tale began for many readers to feel eerily prescient.

[Margaret Atwood]

Had it been so that none of this ever got enacted, then it would probably be sitting on a shelf somewhere and people would be saying, jolly good yarn. But it didn't happen.

[John Wertheim]

Or didn't it? In 2003's Oryx and Crake, for instance, Atwood wrote of environmental collapse and a global pandemic. Pick a catastrophe, any catastrophe, before the real world did its thing. She warned about it in her fiction.

[Margaret Atwood]

It wasn't, you know, this is going to happen. Without a doubt. This could happen. This might happen. So you should be on the watch for it.

[John Wertheim]

What is your relationship with this idea that you're the prophet of doom? This Cassandra, the forecaster of dystopia?

[Margaret Atwood]

I think I'm very positive I didn't kill everybody off at the end. You know, some people do. These are rare books. A lot of them are pretty obscure.

[John Wertheim]

If Atwood can see around corners, it's because her visions have historical precedent. They come rooted in actual events. At the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto, Atwood has archived stacks of her research. That is the hundreds of news clippings that substantiate her plots. So this is folder upon folder of your research for Handmaid's Tale?

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, yeah, lots of it.

[John Wertheim]

She writes by a strict rule, if it didn't happen somewhere at some time, it doesn't make it into the pages of her fiction. Women forced to have babies.

[Narrator/Host]

Mm.

[Margaret Atwood]

Communists are making women have babies. Persistent non pregnancy will be considered a crime against the state.

[John Wertheim]

It's not all doom and gloom. Atwood showed us the COVID she designed for her first volume of poetry. She also writes short stories and children's books for her new book, a new Genre. Her memoir, Book of Lives, published last November, takes the full sweep of her life, starting with a free range childhood spent in the deep wilderness of Quebec. She was homeschooled until the age of 12 while her father did fieldwork on insects. As an entomologist, you wrote some family stopped for ice cream on the side of the road.

[Margaret Atwood]

You stopped for infestation, we stopped for infestations. So what was that like? You screeched to a halt. Father would get out of the car with his tarpaulin and his axe and he would go to the infestation, he would spread the tarp out under the tree and hit the trunk with an axe. And then the things would fall out and he would collect them.

[John Wertheim]

And you're in the backseat thinking, what?

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, no. We were usually out of the car watching him do it.

[John Wertheim]

What did you learn watching him go to work?

[Margaret Atwood]

I think probably growing up with the biologist makes you quite particular about details because you're not saying that's a butterfly, you're saying, what kind of butterfly. You're not saying, that's a tree. You usually know what kind of tree. That's what draws people to reading.

[John Wertheim]

Intent on spinning details into prose and becoming a writer, Atwood enrolled at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, poetry was the big form in Canada in the 60s.

[John Wertheim]

A young poet, she hit the reading circuit and performed in student plays and reviews here at Hart House, one of Canada's oldest theaters.

[Margaret Atwood]

I'm just a show off.

[John Wertheim]

And when Margaret Atwood wants to show off, you surrender the stage.

[Margaret Atwood]

You have to stand over there, hold my purse.

[John Wertheim]

Here's not just any curtsy, but she informed US the 17th century Jacobean court curtsy. She learned for a college production. We told you she's a stickler for detail. How do I respond to that?

[Margaret Atwood]

You bow. Thank you.

[John Wertheim]

You remember that?

[Margaret Atwood]

Why are you so surprised that I remember that?

[John Wertheim]

Before we left the theater, Atwood showed us another party trick.

[Salman Rushdie]

Classic.

[Margaret Atwood]

I'm not getting vibes, okay?

[John Wertheim]

You're not getting vibes from me.

[Margaret Atwood]

No. We're doing the classic Renaissance hand reading.

[John Wertheim]

Yes. She reads poms. Another mode for investigation.

[Margaret Atwood]

People might think that you're just a very reasonable sort of rational person, but in fact, you have this other.

[Salman Rushdie]

Oh, dear.

[Margaret Atwood]

This intuition. So some people stop there and they're very logical, and that's it. You were not one of those people. And we can see that you will never be a murderous dictator for which we are pleased.

[John Wertheim]

I got that going for me. Back to our protagonist. When she graduated in 1961, Canadian writers were encouraged to pursue careers outside the country. Give us a sense of the Canadian lit scene when you were in college.

[Margaret Atwood]

What Canadian lit scene?

[John Wertheim]

Still, Atwood stayed and helped found the country's now thriving literary institutions. Along the way, she met another writer, the late Graham Gibson, who would become her longtime partner. So quintessentially Canadian. Their courtship peaked with a canoe trip.

[Margaret Atwood]

We were both the kinds of people that if the canoe trip hadn't worked out, that would have been it.

[John Wertheim]

Good barometer for a relationship.

[Margaret Atwood]

Yeah, if you can deal with the canoe trip, you can probably deal with lots of other things, too.

[John Wertheim]

And they did. Gibson came to the relationship with some baggage. A, quote, undivorced wife and two kids. In her memoir, Atwood confronts the complications of the blended family. Could I ask you to read a bit for us?

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes. There are several letters in this book from me to my inner advice columnist. Everybody has one. Dear inner advice columnist, sorry to bother you.

[John Wertheim]

Atwood uses the columnist device to confess that though she and Graham have a daughter of their own, she wants more children.

[Margaret Atwood]

We are back at the firm after Scotland, and I have brought up the subject of a second child. I would like one, but Graham has said that a total of three is enough for him. I feel deprived, resentful and disrespected.

[John Wertheim]

If that sounds harsh, listen to the columnist's response, the advice she gave herself.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, for heaven's sakes, count your blessings. Some people don't know when they're well off. Many would give the shirt off their back to have your luck in men. Suck it up. Cherish your child. Get another cat. Your inner advice columnist you can chase. He's rather severe.

[John Wertheim]

That's very get over yourself advice.

[Margaret Atwood]

You gave yourself very get over yourself advice. But Canadians are pretty get over yourself people.

[John Wertheim]

The Handmaid's Tale humility aside, Canada's leading literary figure has become something of a cult figure and a leading voice on all things Canadian. We asked her about the recent chill between her country and the United States as President Trump raises tariffs and threatens to turn our northern neighbors into a 51st state. Atwood says the Canadian response is best summed up by one phrase.

[Margaret Atwood]

It's a hockey thing. And it was this character called Gordie Howe, who is a very revered hockey player. Elbows up is when somebody gets you into the corner and you block them by putting your elbow up. And it means, don't mess with me. And for those who speak of the 51st state. I do point out that it wouldn't be just one state.

[Salman Rushdie]

What do you mean?

[Margaret Atwood]

It's very big. You can't make the whole thing just one state. And anyway, Quebec would never stand for it. You think you're going to make them part of a unilingual big entity? Think again.

[John Wertheim]

Atwood is a student of government power and the overreaches of both. She wrote much of the Handmaid's Tale on a rented typewriter in 1984 West Berlin. She recalls hearing sonic booms from the other side of the Wall. In her ventures to the eastern block, she witnessed policing, paranoia and the absence of freedom. In her memoir, too, she addresses the erosion of democracy. You say the overriding ordinary civil liberties is one of the signposts on the road to dictatorship. Do you see the US on that road right now?

[Margaret Atwood]

I don't think I would be wrong if I said it's concerning. There are certain things that totalitarian coups always do.

[John Wertheim]

Like what?

[Margaret Atwood]

One of them is trying to get control of the media, but the other thing is making the. The judicial arm part of the executive. In other words, judges just do what the chief guide tells them to.

[John Wertheim]

If you're saying the signpost, the signifiers of totalitarian society are.

[Margaret Atwood]

There's some warning lights flashing, for sure.

[John Wertheim]

Amid the warning lights. A series based on the Testaments, her sequel to the Handmaid's Tale, will begin streaming on Hulu this year. But just when you think you can predict on which side of the political divide Atwood falls, she confounds by saying.

[Margaret Atwood]

Something like, just for the record, I've always been attacked more from the left than I have from the right.

[John Wertheim]

Why is that?

[Margaret Atwood]

Well, I think the right thinks I'm irrelevant and the left thinks that I should have been preaching their sermon, whatever it may happen to be, and that I am therefore a traitor for not having done that which they themselves would do.

[John Wertheim]

And what's your response to that?

[Margaret Atwood]

It's unprintable. It involves a finger. Do I see a little blush? Do I see.

[John Wertheim]

She may turn us red. She did not turn us to stone. I'm paraphrasing here, but in your memoir you say you sometimes cut this Medusa like figure with a Medusa like stare. With interviewers, I feel like we're doing okay.

[Margaret Atwood]

The earlier me, the earlier me now, I'm a nice old lady, so you don't have to be worried.

[John Wertheim]

Why the pivot?

[Margaret Atwood]

I got older. I became a blonde.

[John Wertheim]

This was my way of saying I enjoyed this conversation.

[Margaret Atwood]

Oh, is that your way of saying it. So why aren't you a scary old witch? Is that your way of saying it?

[Narrator/Host]

What inspired the signature red cloaks from the Handmaid's Tale?

[Margaret Atwood]

Yes, well, if you have a cult, you have to have [e-mail].

[John Wertheim]

Ugh.

[Narrator/Host]

Could this vintage store be any cuter? Right. And the best part? They accept Discover. Except Discover in a little place like this? I don't think so. Jennifer.

[Salman Rushdie]

Oh yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

Huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on baby, get with the time. Right.

[Margaret Atwood]

So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.

[Narrator/Host]

These are making a comeback, I think.

[John Wertheim]

Discover is accepted at 99% of places.

[Anderson Cooper]

That take credit cards nationwide, based on.

[John Wertheim]

The February 2025 Nielsen report.

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[John Wertheim]

Salman Rushdie has been a marked man for nearly half his life. In 1989, Iran's leader Ayatollah Khamenei declared Rushdie's novel the Satanic Verses blasphemous, an insult to Islam and called for the Indian born writer's assassination. Rushdie went into hiding with around the clock police protection for 10 years. He eventually moved to the US and thought he was safe. But in August 2022, as he was about to speak at a literary event in Chautauqua, New York, Salman Rushdie was attacked by a Muslim man with a knife. Rushdie, who's now 78, lost his right eye and came close to dying. He's come to terms with the attempt on his life by writing a book about it called Simply Knife. Anderson Cooper spoke with Rushdie in 2024 in what was his first television interview since the attack.

[Anderson Cooper]

You had had a dream two days, I think it was before the attack. What was the dream?

[Salman Rushdie]

I kind of had a premonition. I mean, I had a dream of being attacked in an amphitheater, but it was a kind of Roman Empire dream. You know, it's as if I was in the coliseum and it was just somebody with the spear stabbing downwards and I was rolling around on the floor trying to get away from him. And I woke up and was quite shaken by it. And I had to go to Chautauqua, you know, and I said to my wife Eliza, I said, you know, I don't want to go. Because of the dream, because of the dream. And then I thought, don't be silly, it's a dream.

[Anderson Cooper]

Salman Rushdie, one of his generation's most acclaimed writers and had been invited to the town of Chautauqua, close to Lake Erie, to speak about a subject he knows all too well, the importance of protecting writers whose lives are under threat. Did you have any anxiety being in such a public space?

[Salman Rushdie]

Not really, because in the more than 20 years that I've been living in America, I've done a lot of these things.

[Anderson Cooper]

You haven't had security around you, a close protection detail for a long time.

[Salman Rushdie]

Long time. But, you know, what happens in many places that you go and lecture is that they're used to having a certain degree of security, venue security. In this case, there wasn't any.

[Anderson Cooper]

The irony, of course, is you were there to talk about writers in danger.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, exactly. And the need for writers from other countries to have safe spaces in America, amongst other places. And then, yeah, it just turned out not to be a safe space for me for years.

[Anderson Cooper]

No place was safe for Salman rushdie, whose sprawling 600 page novel, the Satanic Verses, offended some Muslims for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for Rushdie's death. In 1989, there were worldwide protests. From London to Lahore. The Satanic Verses was burned and 12 people died in clashes with police. The book's Japanese translator was murdered and others associated with it were attacked. Did you have any idea that it would cause violence?

[Salman Rushdie]

No, I had no idea. I thought probably some conservative religious people wouldn't like it, but they didn't like anything I wrote anyway. So I thought, well, they don't have to read it.

[Anderson Cooper]

Were you naive?

[Salman Rushdie]

Probably. You know, I mean, it's easy looking back to think, but nothing like this had ever happened to anybody. And of course almost all the people who attacked the book did so without reading it. I was often told that I had intended to insult, offend people. And my view was, if I need to insult you, I can do it really quickly. I don't need to spend five years of my life trying to write a 600 page book to insult you.

[Anderson Cooper]

Rushdie was living in London when he went into hiding. And for the next 10 years the British government provided him with 24 hour police protection. Did people try to kill you?

[Salman Rushdie]

Yes. There were maybe as many as half a dozen serious assassination attempts which were not random people. They were state sponsored terrorism professionals.

[Anderson Cooper]

After diplomatic negotiations, the Iranian state called off its assassins. In 1998, Rushdie finally came out of the shadows. He moved to New York and for the next two decades lived openly. He was a man about town. He continued writing and became a celebrated advocate for freedom of expression. So when he received the invitation to speak in Chautauqua in August 2022, he gladly accepted.

[Salman Rushdie]

I was seated at stage right.

[Anderson Cooper]

In his book Knife, he described what happened next.

[Salman Rushdie]

Then in the corner of my right eye, the last thing my right eye would ever see, I saw the man in black running towards me down the right hand side of the seating area. Black clothes, black face mask. He was coming in hard and low, a squat missile. I confess I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other and coming for me in just this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was, so it's you, here you are.

[Anderson Cooper]

So it's you, here you are.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's like you've been waiting for it.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, that's what it felt like. It felt like something coming out of the distant past and trying to drag me back in time, if you like, back into that distant past in order to kill me. And when he got to me, he basically hit me very hard here. And initially I thought I'd been punched.

[Anderson Cooper]

You didn't actually see a knife?

[Salman Rushdie]

I didn't see the knife and I didn't realize until I saw blood coming out that there had been a knife in his, in his fist.

[Anderson Cooper]

So where was that stab? Here, in, in your neck?

[Salman Rushdie]

In my neck, yeah. Then there were a lot more. The worst wounds was there was a big slash wound like this across my neck and there's a puncture stab wound here. And then of course, there was the attack on my eye.

[Anderson Cooper]

Do you remember being stabbed in the eye?

[Salman Rushdie]

No, I remember falling. Then I remembered not knowing what had happened to my eye.

[Anderson Cooper]

He was also stabbed in his hand, chest, abdomen and thigh. Fifteen wounds in all. He was both stabbing and also slashing.

[Salman Rushdie]

I think he was just wildly.

[Anderson Cooper]

The attack lasted 27 seconds. To feel just how long that is. This is what 27 seconds is.

[Salman Rushdie]

That's it. That's quite a long time. That's the extraordinary half minute of intimacy in which life meets death.

[Anderson Cooper]

What stopped it from being longer?

[Salman Rushdie]

The audience pulling him off me. Strangers to you, to this day, I don't know their names.

[Anderson Cooper]

Some of those strangers restrained the attacker, while others desperately try to stem the flow of Rushdie's blood.

[Salman Rushdie]

There was really a lot of blood.

[Anderson Cooper]

You were actually watching your blood?

[Salman Rushdie]

I was actually watching it split. And then I remember thinking that I was probably dying. And it was interesting because it was quite matter of fact. It wasn't like I was terrified of it or whatever. And, yeah, there was nothing. No heavenly choirs, no pearly gates. I mean, I'm not a supernatural person, you know, I believe that death comes as the end. There was nothing that happened that made me change my mind about that.

[Anderson Cooper]

You have not had a revelation?

[Salman Rushdie]

I have not had any revelation except that there's no revelation to be had.

[Anderson Cooper]

His attacker, the man in black, was hustled off the stage. In the book, you do not use the attacker's name.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, I thought, you know, I don't want his name in my book, and I don't use it in conversation either.

[Anderson Cooper]

But that is important to you, not to give him space in your brain.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, he and I had 27 seconds together, you know, that's it. I don't need to give him any more of my time.

[Anderson Cooper]

Paramedics flew Rushdie to a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, 40 miles away, where a team of doctors battled for eight hours to save his life. When he finally came out of surgery, his wife, Eliza, a poet and novelist, was waiting.

[Narrator/Host]

He wasn't moving, and he was just laid out.

[Anderson Cooper]

He looked half dead to you?

[Narrator/Host]

Yes, he did. He was a different color. He was cold. I mean, his face was stapled. Just staples holding his face together.

[Anderson Cooper]

Rushdie was on a ventilator, unable to speak. Eliza. And the doctors had no idea whether the knife that had penetrated his eye had damaged his brain.

[Narrator/Host]

Someone from the staff said that we would use this system of wiggling the toes to communicate. To communicate.

[Anderson Cooper]

Do you remember the first question you asked to get a wiggle Or I.

[Narrator/Host]

Think I said, salman, it's Eliza. Can you hear me? And there was, there was a wiggle. And asked him, I think, can you? Do you know where you are? And wiggled. And it was, it was a very basic, simple question because you can't express.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yourself with any subtlety with your toes.

[Narrator/Host]

Which is your favorite thing.

[Anderson Cooper]

After 18 days in the hospital and three weeks in rehab, Rushdie was discharged.

[Salman Rushdie]

One of the surgeons who had saved my life said to me, first you were really unlucky and then you were really lucky. I said, what's the lucky part? He said, well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife.

[Anderson Cooper]

You're not a believer in miracles, but the fact that you survived, you write in the book, is a miracle.

[Salman Rushdie]

This is a contradiction. How does somebody who doesn't believe in the supernatural account for the fact that something has happened which feels like a miracle? I mean, I certainly don't feel that some hand reached down from the skies and guarded me, but I do think something happened which wasn't supposed to happen, and I have no explanation for it.

[Anderson Cooper]

His attacker was a 24 year old from New Jersey who lived in his mother's basement. He was believed to be a lone wolf. He pleaded not guilty to attempted murder. And when we talk with Rushdie, he was still awaiting trial. In an interview, he told the New York Post he'd only read a couple pages of the Satanic Verses and seen some clips of Rushdie on YouTube. He said he didn't like him very much because Rushdie had attacked Islam. Does it matter to you what his motive was?

[Salman Rushdie]

I mean, it's interesting to me because it's a mystery. If I had written a character who knew so little about his proposed victim and yet was willing to commit the crime of murder, my publishers might well say to me that that's under motivated.

[Anderson Cooper]

You need to develop that character.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, not enough of a reason, you know, not convincing, but yet that's what he did.

[Anderson Cooper]

Rushdie's knife, his 22nd book is one he initially did not want to write.

[Salman Rushdie]

That was the last thing I wanted to do.

[Anderson Cooper]

Because you didn't want this to yet again, define you.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, it was very difficult for me after the Satanic Verses was published that the only thing anybody knew about me was this death threat. But it became clear to me that I couldn't write anything else.

[Anderson Cooper]

You had to write this first.

[Salman Rushdie]

I had to write this first. I just thought, you know, I need to focus on, you know, to use the Cliche. The elephant in the room. And the moment I thought that kind of something changed in my head. And it then became a book I really very much wanted to write.

[Anderson Cooper]

You say that language was my knife. If I had unexpectedly been caught in an unwanted knife fight, maybe this was the knife I could use to fight back, to take charge of what had happened to me, to own it, make it mine.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah, I mean, language is a way of breaking open the world. I don't have any other weapons, but I've been using this particular tool for quite a long time. So I thought this was my way of dealing with it.

[Anderson Cooper]

It's been three years since the attack, and Rushdie is back home now in New York, still getting used to navigating the world with one eye. How much time did it take to kind of readjust?

[Salman Rushdie]

I'm still doing it.

[Anderson Cooper]

You still are, yeah. Do you feel like you are a different person after the attack?

[Salman Rushdie]

I don't feel I'm very different, but I do feel that it has left a shadow. I think that shadow is just there. And some days it's dark, and some days it's not.

[Anderson Cooper]

You feel less than you were before?

[Salman Rushdie]

No, I just feel more the presence of death.

[Anderson Cooper]

In an interview almost 25 years ago, you said of the fatwa, I want to find an end to this story. It is the one story I must find an end to. Have you found that ending? And an ending to this story as well?

[Salman Rushdie]

Well, I thought I had. And then it turned out I hadn't. I'm hoping this is just a last twitch of that story. I don't know. I'll let you know.

[John Wertheim]

Last year, Salman Rushdie's attacker was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Hey, Sal. Hank.

[Anderson Cooper]

What's going on?

[John Wertheim]

We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a.

[Anderson Cooper]

Great car at a great price, and.

[John Wertheim]

It got delivered the next day.

[Salman Rushdie]

It sounds like Carvana.

[John Wertheim]

Just makes it easier. Easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.

[Narrator/Host]

Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

[John Wertheim]

With more than 150 million copies sold in 40 languages, Guinness World Records is one of the best selling books in history. In it, you'll find the shortest, tallest and fastest. Alongside jaw dropping human feats and 8th grade bathroom humor. As Cecilia Vega first told you in November, some achievements are so over the top, it was hard to keep a Straight face during the interviews. But behind the spectacle, a meticulous system of British auditing so strict it has crushed many more record attempts than it has certified. Even if what you see defies belief, you can trust that if it made it into the book, it is real. And as Guinness World Records declares officially, amazing.

[Anderson Cooper]

Are you ready?

[Narrator/Host]

How are you feeling?

[John Wertheim]

I'm feeling pumped.

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Host]

For Colin Kaplan, the stakes couldn't be higher.

[John Wertheim]

Not in my wildest dreams could I have ever thought that I'd be doing anything like this.

[Narrator/Host]

After a year of planning, he's about to find out if his city, New Haven, Connecticut, can eat its way into history by hosting the world's famous largest pizza party.

[Salman Rushdie]

Let's get some pizza.

[Narrator/Host]

Kaplan, a local historian and food tour guide, is so obsessed with pizza, last year he chartered a jet to Washington and got his congresswoman to declare New Haven the pizza capital of America.

[Salman Rushdie]

New Haven pizza capital, baby.

[Narrator/Host]

Is this a serious endeavor?

[John Wertheim]

Yeah. Yeah, I think it is.

[Craig Glenday]

I'll tell you what.

[John Wertheim]

It seems light and fun, but it's serious in a sense of what's on the line.

[Narrator/Host]

What's on the line is the glory of a Guinness World Record, and people will do just about anything to get one.

[Craig Glenday]

Humans are such an interesting bunch, aren't we? And record breaking is an innately human thing. And if that means you do strange things like swallowing sausages whole or climbing Everest or running a marathon with a milk bottle on your head, then that's. That's fine. That's great.

[Narrator/Host]

Craig Glenday has been the book's editor in chief for the past 21 years.

[Craig Glenday]

I really like that. So I think we want more of that.

[Narrator/Host]

In his signature Scottish accent, he recounts with a straight face what is often a circus of absurdity.

[Craig Glenday]

You know, we get things like, fastest time to run around my garden playing the banjo with a snake on my head. It's like, next they get a nice letter of like, thank you, but no thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

Cutest babies and cutest dogs don't make the cut either. Records must meet strict criteria. They have to be filmed from multiple angles, verified by independent eyewitnesses, and measured with precision. Each year, Guinness World records receives roughly 50,000 applications, but as many as 95% get rejected. The largest number of submissions come from the United States.

[Craig Glenday]

One of my favourite days in the job was I was at the X Games at the Staples Centre in la and a dog zipped past me on a skateboard. And despite the heat, I chased after this dog, and I found the owner and said, I've Never seen a dog on a skateboard. And he said, oh, this is Tillman, he loves skateboarding. I had a tape measure, we measured out 100 meters of the car park at the Staples Centre and we set the record there and then. Cause I was so amazed by it.

[Narrator/Host]

Do you just walk through the world with a tape measure in your pocket?

[Craig Glenday]

Well, I do usually.

[Salman Rushdie]

Do you?

[Craig Glenday]

Yeah, I have a tape measure and a stopwatch because you never know.

[Narrator/Host]

Many of the record holders, you know, Usain Bolt for the fastest 200 meters, Beyonce for the most Grammys, and many you've probably never even imagined go like serial record breaker. David Rush, an Idaho tech worker who has broken more than 350 records and counting, including most bites taken from three apples while juggling for a minute just.

[Omaha Steaks Advertiser]

Past the two mile mark.

[Narrator/Host]

And most T shirts worn during a half marathon. And monsieur Mangetou, that's Mr. Eats everything in French. He held the record for the world's strangest diet.

[Craig Glenday]

The guy who'd, you know, he'd supposedly eaten a Cessna because he could eat metal and glass.

[Narrator/Host]

A Cessna plane.

[Craig Glenday]

Well, apparently it took him two years. We couldn't quite give him.

[Narrator/Host]

He sound very healthy.

[Craig Glenday]

Well, I mean, his wife wouldn't let him use the toilet at home because if he'd been eating metal, it tends to come out like bullets and it would chip the porcelain. So he'd have to use a hotel with metal toilets near his house.

[Narrator/Host]

This is the craziest interview I've ever done. Sorry, I'm sorry, come back to what you were saying, that when you.

[Craig Glenday]

I mean for me it's every day. So I don't quite get it. But yeah, he could do glass and metal, he couldn't do chains. But to meet him was a real honor for me because he was like a childhood hero for me.

[Narrator/Host]

You must get this question all the time. Why?

[Craig Glenday]

Why? I mean, it's different for everyone. Everyone has a different reason. Some just want fame, some want to be in print. We do validate people that do things that others might seem a bit weird, like eating aircraft and stuff.

[Narrator/Host]

Do you not see that as weird?

[Craig Glenday]

I mean, I see it as really interesting.

[Narrator/Host]

I gotta tell you, I thought it would be a little crazier in here. Inside the company's London headquarters, Glenday keeps a cabinet of greatest hits.

[Craig Glenday]

It's Craig's Cabinet of Curiodities.

[Narrator/Host]

Like the world's smallest playing cards and a giant size 29 shoe. I'm like the Vanna White of oddities here. What is this?

[Craig Glenday]

If you have a Little investigation of that. It's the world's oldest. Vomit, Vomit, vomit.

[Narrator/Host]

You got me on that one.

[Craig Glenday]

160. It doesn't smell. It's obviously petrified.

[Narrator/Host]

Not everyone chooses to break records. I'm five ten. So what was she?

[Craig Glenday]

She's just on seven foot.

[Narrator/Host]

The tallest and shortest people often have had genetic conditions. The woman with the longest fingernails, 43ft, hasn't cut them since. Her daughter, who painted her nails, passed away in 1997. So she still holds the record.

[Craig Glenday]

Still has the record, and I think that's the longest ever measured.

[Narrator/Host]

The idea for the book began during a hunting trip at this country estate in Ireland, where the manager of the Guinness brewery got into an argument over who could name the fastest game bird in Europe. To settle future pub debates, he commissioned a book of superlatives, which eventually became the Guinness World Records. The first one was published in 1955.

[Craig Glenday]

The initial reaction from the book trade was not that positive. In the first sales meeting ever, the salesperson wrote six on the slip. And they said, do you mean 6,600? Said no, six.

[Narrator/Host]

They just wanted six.

[Craig Glenday]

Six for the whole country?

[Salman Rushdie]

Yeah.

[Craig Glenday]

By the end of the week, it was like 10,000. They sold that quickly and it just blew up.

[Narrator/Host]

Seventy years later, it's still a hit at school book fairs. But today, the name Guinness World Records is synonymous with viral stunts that become clickbait gold. Is Google your biggest competition? I could pull my phone out right now and search the world's fastest bird.

[Craig Glenday]

You might as well open the window and shout your question into the street and you'll get an answer. Yeah, but is it the right one? Well, I can say I know Sultan Kosen's eight foot three because I was there with the tape measure. I measured them.

[Narrator/Host]

He's also measured the shortest person who he learned about after a woodcutter passed through a remote village in Nepal and alerted the team at Guinness World Records.

[Craig Glenday]

So it was confidence enough for me to then go to Nepal.

[Narrator/Host]

You get on a flight and go to Nepal to measure this person.

[Craig Glenday]

And we would never have known about him had that woodcutter not gone through the village that day and sent us the video footage.

[Narrator/Host]

And then there are the rules so rigid, they've sparked office debates over who makes the cut for the largest gathering of people dressed as Smurfs.

[Craig Glenday]

So it's like, okay, well, what is a Smurf? What do they wear? Do they all have blue skin? Yes. You know, you might have to write guidelines for any possible topic. So we've got this huge, big Book of experts. You know, from archaeologists to Smurfs to Smurfologists. Yeah, I don't know if that's a thing, but, you know, like, we've got a myrmecologist, which.

[Salman Rushdie]

What is that?

[Craig Glenday]

Myrmecologist. An ant expert. So if we've got a question about what's the most dangerous ant.

[Narrator/Host]

Quick, get the myrmecologist online.

[Craig Glenday]

Like, we've just found this big ant. Is it the biggest?

[Narrator/Host]

For large events like the New Haven.

[Thomas Bradford]

Pizza party, I am today's official Guinness World Records adjudicator. So I'm basically the judge.

[Narrator/Host]

Guinness World Records sometimes sends an adjudicator responsible for enforcing the rules from headquarters.

[Thomas Bradford]

You're going to write how many people you disqualified. Hopefully. That is a nice, big round zero.

[Narrator/Host]

Thomas Bradford is one of 81 adjudicators the company employs across six continents. His day job is as a performer at D Disney, but when it's go time, he puts on his trademark blue jacket.

[Thomas Bradford]

The largest gathering of people dressed as dinosaurs was one of my favorite events. And you kind of expect people to just come in the classic, you know, inflatable T. Rex costume.

[Narrator/Host]

What do they come in?

[Thomas Bradford]

Diplodocus triceratop. Like, you name it, we had it.

[Narrator/Host]

Legit gear, everything.

[Thomas Bradford]

I had to turn away people that were dressed as Godzilla because Godzilla is not a dinosaur.

[Narrator/Host]

How do you break it to a dinosaur in a bad costume? That they don't qualify.

[Thomas Bradford]

You kind of just have to play the role. I think my accent helps, and there is a level of, you know, authority that comes from a British accent very much that. The largest pizza party is probably the most competitive record that I've ever been a part of.

[Narrator/Host]

Is that true?

[Thomas Bradford]

I didn't think it would be as it's. It's a lot, yes.

[Narrator/Host]

They stressing you out?

[Thomas Bradford]

This is one of the most stressful record attempts I've had.

[Narrator/Host]

Colin Kaplan needs 3,358 people to show up in order to beat the current record. You want to beat Tulsa?

[John Wertheim]

We're going to beat Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[Narrator/Host]

Participants get 15 minutes to eat two slices of pizza and drink a bottle of water. But here's the catch. They have to stay until the party.

[Thomas Bradford]

Is officially over and they must eat the entire pizza. No one can leave their crusts. They have to eat the crust.

[Narrator/Host]

What makes a pizza party like this so difficult?

[Salman Rushdie]

People?

[Thomas Bradford]

Yeah, it's, you know, you don't know if they're gonna stay for 15 minutes. They might wait for 14 and be like, I'm fine. You're disqualified. If you leave after 14 minutes, you know, so that's. People is the toughest thing. This official Guinness World Records attempt has begun.

[Narrator/Host]

At first it was slow going. What if. Look, not enough people show up? Are you guys already accounted? But then in came the pizza obsessed college students, children, those in their finest pepperoni attire.

[John Wertheim]

It's 10,000 slices, which is 625 pizzas in about three and a half hours.

[Narrator/Host]

Kaplan's pursuit of a record didn't come cheap. Brands and businesses chasing titles for marketing must pay fees. He said he paid nearly $30,000 and fundraised six figures to cover all the costs, including eight ovens and all that cheese. When Thomas Bradford wasn't busy being a celebrity. Awesome. He and a group of 100 volunteers kept the tally.

[Thomas Bradford]

Only two didn't finish. One left. Perfect. Okay.

[Narrator/Host]

With an hour to go, it's gonna.

[Thomas Bradford]

Go to the wire. I think it's gonna be close.

[Narrator/Host]

Kaplan was still trying to make the pie calculations add up.

[John Wertheim]

We could actually feed 1800 people starting at 6 o' clock still.

[Narrator/Host]

Okay.

[John Wertheim]

And that means that we could 100% beat the record and almost get to 5,000.

[Narrator/Host]

So did they. Finally, the verdict.

[John Wertheim]

And now New Haven is home to the world's largest.

[Narrator/Host]

4525 people gathered for a new Guinness World Record.

[Thomas Bradford]

Congratulations New Haven. You are all officially amazing and a slice of history.

[Craig Glenday]

Human beings are nearly the same everywhere they are really because they're trying to get through from birth to death and have as much fun and enjoy life and get all the experiences that you can. And we see this every day. The world is full of these amazing fun things if you just look in the right place.

[John Wertheim]

I'm John Wertheim, thanks for joining us. We'll be back next week with an all new edition of 60 Minutes.

[Thomas Bradford]

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.

[John Wertheim]

But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year.

[Anderson Cooper]

What do you have to lose?

[John Wertheim]

Give it a [e-mail] switch.

[Narrator/Host]

Limited time, 50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy see terms. It is my great honor to welcome you all to Starfleet Academy.

[Anderson Cooper]

There's never been a better time to.

[John Wertheim]

To enroll in Star Trek.

[Narrator/Host]

It's our job to prepare you for the unimaginable. To the Night Cadet.

[Craig Glenday]

In high pressure situations, positive reinforcement is.

[Narrator/Host]

Crucial to one's success. You're doing a great job.

[John Wertheim]

This is what we train for. These friends of mine, they all live for something bigger than themselves. Starfleet, Starfleet Academy.

[Omaha Steaks Advertiser]

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