AP Photo/Richard Drew
Author Salman Rushdie appears during an interview in New York on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
Salman Rushdie, the acclaimed author of “The Satanic Verses,” will speak in Houston on Monday evening. Only a handful of followers will know where ahead of time.
Inprint, a Houston literary nonprofit organization, had teased his lecture for weeks, adding that the location of the Jan. 12 event would be announced at a later date. Now, the organization says the location will only be shared with ticket holders.
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In an interview with Craig Cohen on Houston Matters, Rushdie said he wasn’t aware of that safety protocol.
“With this new book, ‘The Eleventh Hour,’ coming out, I haven’t done a gigantic book tour, but I’ve done some stuff,” Rushdie said. “We’re getting better at knowing how to do these things in a way that’s safe for everybody.”
“The Eleventh Hour,” Rushdie’s newest short story collection, was released in November 2025.
He has faced death threats and assassination attempts since the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in 1988. In 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie multiple times, hospitalizing him. Rushdie survived the incident but is now blind in one eye and has lost the ability to use one of his hands.
Since the attack, events including Rushdie have included heightened security measures. In spite of that, he said on Houston Matters that he is not afraid to do public events like Monday’s lecture.
“It was a case of kind of bad luck really, because I just encountered one crazy kid, in a situation where there was no security protection at all,” he said. “If there had been one person stationed by the steps up to the stage, nothing would have happened. So, it was a kind of perfect storm. I don’t spend my days worrying about it too much. I am serious about making sure it never happens again, I’ll say that.”
Rushdie’s lecture, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday, is part of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. Rushdie will read from “The Eleventh Hour” and speak on stage with writer Brenda Peynado.
Tickets — and information on the location — can be obtained on Inprint’s website.