christopher brumfit essay prize 2022

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CHRISTOPHER BRUMFIT ESSAY PRIZE

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Evaluation and Assessment (EnA)

This research group focuses on themes related to evaluating subject didactics, teacher education, teaching methods and learning materials in/across subjects, assessment/testing subject learning, assessment impact/feedback, assessment methods and paradigms (e.g. assessment for learning vs high-stakes testing), etc.

This group belongs to the Faculty of Education and International Studies (LUI) and aims to further understanding of issues of evaluation and assessment for diverse groups of participants, e.g. primary and secondary school students, teachers, principals, policy-makers, and for diverse needs (e.g. immigration, special learning needs, etc) with a view to examining those issues from a multidisciplinary perspective and variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and initiate research efforts related to initial and continuous training for small- and large-scale projects.

Head of research group

More about the research.

Evaluation and Assessment have always been important areas of policy and practice in education, inextricably linked with many aspects of teaching and learning, including educational policy, teaching, curriculum design, teacher development, subject knowledge acquisition, teacher/student competence/performance, to name just a few. In recent years, discussions and research in the field of Evaluation and Assessment have been motivated by the following premises: 

• The growing role of assessment to support learning.
• The significant increase of computer-based and multimedia-based learning and assessment environments.
• The shift away from knowledge transfer towards learning strategies aimed at more generic skills, such as 21st century skills and global competence.
• The need for high quality teacher education programmes that lead to enhancing teacher (and other stakeholder) assessment literacy. 

The overall purpose of EnA is to promote the understanding of theoretical principles of evaluation and assessment, and the improvement and sharing of evaluation and assessment practices throughout members of the group and the institute it belongs to.  

We define educational assessment and evaluation in its broadest sense by including academic, professional and vocational contexts and are equally concerned with both assessment processes and products. We aim to enhance understanding of issues of evaluation and assessment for diverse groups of participants, e.g. primary and secondary school students, teachers, principals, policy-makers, and for diverse needs (e.g. immigration, special learning needs, etc.) with a view to examining those issues from a multidisciplinary perspective and variety of methodological and theoretical approaches.  

Evaluation and Assessment is an important focus area and the purpose of our group will be to visualize and further develop the work in this field at the Faculty of Education and International Studies (LUI). The group has its origins in the Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education (GFU) and is open to research and development at all stages of teacher education, level and in all subjects. There are possible partners, including potential participants from other research and development groups, as well as the three other institutes and the National Centre for Multicultural Education (NAFO) at LUI. 

EnA is a new group, and the group's interests and research areas will be defined further by those who become participants. Possible topics for our research group could be the following (the list is not exhaustive):  

• Critical approaches in educational evaluation and assessment.
• Developments in theory and practice of formative assessment.  
• Links between learning theories and assessment.
• Validity issues with regard to assessment design and preparation.
• Fairness and equality in educational assessment.
• Teachers’ use of technology in assessment.
• Teachers and/or students as stakeholders in the development of new assessment paradigms.
• School-based assessment data and its use in monitoring and supporting learning.
• Assessment for citizenship and global understandings.
• Alternative assessment paradigms/methods.
• Enhancement of levels of teacher assessment literacy (and other stakeholders).
• Technological and psychometric innovations in assessment.
• The nature and impact of external vs school-based (teacher) assessment.
• The legal framework of educational assessment.
• Stakeholders mandates affecting the assessment agenda of schools and teachers.
• Public’s reactions towards national and teacher assessments.
• The social responsibility of Examination Committees and Awarding Bodies.
• Public trust in low- and high-stakes assessments and teacher assessment.
• Social and political underpinnings of educational assessment and evaluation.
• Tensions between assessment for learning and accountability.
• Tensions between teacher assessment and external examinations.
• The social responsibility of test developers and policy agents.
• Cross-region comparisons of educational reform and associated assessment approaches.
• Validity issues in educational assessment generally and in e-assessment specifically.
• Teachers’ Assessment Literacy Enhancement (TALE) (taleproject.eu) , Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for school education. Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, 2015-2018. This project won the British Council Innovation in Assessment Research Award in 2019.
• English as a Lingua Franca Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms (ENRICH) (enrichproject.eu) , Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships for school education. Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices, 2018-2021.
• Digital and inclusive challenges for Norwegian and German Learning and Education (DINGLE) (researchgate.net) , 2020-2021 
• Training programme on Formative Assessment for the EOI de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain KA1 Erasmus+ Project 2020-2022
• Supporting Content and Language Learning Across Diversity (SCALED)

PhD projects

• Michel Alendre Cabot defended his thesis: Meaningful Grammar Feedback in English Writing Teacher Education Researching Perspectives on Feedback-as-an-artefact, Feedback Reception, and Feedback Provision, Department of Teacher Education and School Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo.
• Anne-Grete Kaldahl defended her thesis: The educational challenge of oracy - a rhetorical approach: Exploring and articulating the oracy construct in Norwegian schools. Faculty of Education and International Studies. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University .
• Lynell Chvala: Teachers’ pedagogical vision for 21st century English education - Expanding landscapes for English as a multilingua franca of global citizenship in Norwegian schools. Faculty of Education and International Studies. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University.
• Theresé Marie Tishakov: Developing Competence of English Language Teachers of Multilingualism and Multilingual Pedagogy (tentative title). Faculty of Education and International Studies. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University .
• Trine Gedde-Dahl: Stages, developmental leaps and orchestration. Writing development in a group of students with the main emphasis on writing development from 6th to 8th grade (tentative title). Faculty of Education and International Studies. OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University
• Tone Holt Nielsen: A Study of the English Language Needs of Norwegians Working in Private Enterprises. Department of Teacher Education and School Research, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo.  

We have collaborations with national and international professional associations.

• European Association for Language Testing and Assessment (eu.org)
• Classroom-based Language Assessment – CBLA SIG group affiliated with EALTA
• International Language Testing Association
• Language Assessment Literacy –  LAL SIG group affiliated ILTA
• Language Assessment for Young Learners –  Young Learners SIG group affiliated ILTA
• Association for Language Testing and Assessment of Australia and New Zealand – ALTAANZ (altaanz.org)
• Association for Educational Assessment, Europe - AEA (aea-europe.net)
• eAssessment, SIG Group affiliated with AEA (aea-europe.net)
• Assessment Cultures affiliated with AEA (aea-europe.net)
• Latin American Association for Language Testing and Assessment (LAALTA)
• IATEFL Testing, Evaluation and Assessment Special Interest Group (iatefl.org)

PhD courses

PhD course PHUV9440 Assessment and learning .

• 20th Conference of the Association for Educational Assessment Europe (AEA-Europe): November 3 – 16 2019, Lisbon, Portugal. 
• EUROCALL 2019: August 28 - 31 2019, Louvain, Belgium.
• RELANG Seminar: June 2019, OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University and the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML). Host: Kirstin Reed.
• 16th Annual Conference of the European Association of Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA):  May 30 - June 3, 2019, University College Dublin, Ireland.
• 9th Meeting of the Classroom-based language Assessment SIG, 16th Annual Conference of the European Association of Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA): May 2019, University College Dublin, Ireland. Organiser: Dina Tsagari.
• Teacher Well-Being and Diversity (TWBD): Managing Language and Social Diversity in Classrooms: June 2019, OsloMet.
• Online Meeting of the Classroom-based language Assessment SIG, European Association of Language Testing and Assessment (EALTA): June 2020, CBLA SIG, EALTA. Organiser: Dina Tsagari.
• ENRICH Multiplier Event in Norway - ENRICH ME: Linguistic Diversity in English Language Teaching: Webinar 26 October, 14.30-18.10, OsloMet
• 17.30-17.35: Welcome
• 17.35-17.55:  TEYL to dyslexic students in Brazil, Juliana Reichert Assuncao Tonelli, State University of Londrina, Brazil
• 17.55-18.15:  A test for assessing the metalinguistic awareness of young language learners (the MetaLearn project), Christine Möller-Omrani & Kaja Haugen, Western Norway University of Applied Science, Norway
• 18.15-18.35: Research into young language learners’ achievement in time: challenges and perspectives. Lucilla Lopriore, Roma Tre University, Italy
• 18.35-18.45 Break
• 18.45-19.05: World language learning in U.S. preschools and kindergartens: Perspectives from pre-primary teachers in the United States, Veronika Timpe-Laughlin, ETS, USA
• 19.05-19.25: Exploring Test Uses and Consequences of International Young Learners’ English Tests’, Jia Guo, Queen’s University, Canada
• 19.25-19.30: Closing remarks
• 8:30 PST / 11:30 EST / 17.30 CET: Welcome
• 8:35 / 11:35 / 17:35: Refinement of Text Structures and the Interplay Between Literacy Skills: Breadth of Comprehension, Depth of Thought, Complexity of Discourse by Miriam C.A. Semeniuk, Canada
• 9:00 / 12:00 / 18.00: Investigating the Relationship between Item Difficulty and the Visual Complexity of Item Support and Response Images in a Listening Test for Young Learners by Monique Yoder, Ph.D. Candidate at Michigan State University
• 9:25 PST / 12:25 EST / 18.25 CET: Closing remarks.  

Programme of Presentations Spring 2024

Wednesday 24 january - hybrid.

• 9.00 – 10.15 EnA meeting for internal members only

Wednesday 14 February - Online

• 15.00 – 16.30   Dr. Anastasiya Lipnevich: Harmony and Dissonance: Orchestrating Effective Instructional Feedback (oslomet.no)

Dr. Anastasiya Lipnevich: Professor of Educational Psychology, Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

In this presentation, I will describe a series of studies that have investigated instructional feedback, exploring its mechanisms and the diverse (and often paradoxical) effects it has on various educational outcomes. I will delve into the underlying processes that contribute to the effectiveness of instructional feedback and discuss conditions that optimize its potential for enhancing student performance, learning, and individual characteristics.

I will share research on assessment approaches employed by instructors and highlight cognitive biases that may influence assessment-related decisions made by both teachers and students. Further, I will propose strategies for equipping students with the necessary tools to generate self-feedback effectively, promoting autonomous learning.

The studies discussed in this talk will encompass a wide range of contexts, cultures, and academic disciplines, emphasizing potential pitfalls with generalizations of findings. Additionally, I will outline potential avenues for future research and highlight some of the current challenges faced by the field. By addressing these challenges, we can advance our understanding of instructional feedback and its implications for educational settings.

Wednesday 15 May - Online

• 9.00 – 9.40: Ulla Hietamäki: Learning Assessment Practices in a Multidisciplinary Learning in Finland - A Phenomenographic Approach on Teachers’ Perceptions
• 9.45-10.30: Eleni Kartalia: EFL teachers’ self-reflective awareness of assessment instruments and practices as metacognitive flashbacks

Ulla Hietamäki, PhD cand. Faculty of Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Learning assessment is a tension area in multidisciplinary learning (ML) context. ML offers to students large opportunities to learn real-world phenomena but on the other hand learning assessment in ML units is perceived as difficult. Since the 2014 curriculum reform in Finland, certain aspects of learning assessment have changed in Finnish basic education, and learning assessment emphasis has been placed on student participation. 

These educational policy reforms and their practical implementation, in particular ML units, have increased national and international interest in the Finnish curriculum. Using a variety of assessment methods brings challenges for teachers, but also increases opportunities for students to demonstrate their skills in different ways. 

Assessment practices research in ML context is a topical and relevant issue that has been scarcely studied. This study addresses this research gap and investigates Finnish primary school teachers’ (PST) perception of assessment practices in the ML unit. The data was collected using the phenomenographic research tradition and it is based on semi-structured interviews (n=15).

EFL teachers’ self-reflective awareness of assessment instruments and practices as metacognitive flashbacks

Eleni Kartalia, MA cand. European University Cyprus, Greece

Research evidence in the field of Applied Linguistics investigating Second Language Assessment indicates that a significant shift in good pedagogic practices in the classroom reality is attributed to Formative assessment procedures, as they provide a privileged accessibility to quality learning outcomes which benefit both teachers and learners by transforming performance data into valuable learning resources. 

The rationale behind this study is to focus on the EFL teachers’ views and preferences on the assessment instruments they use, as metacognitive flashbacks which interpret their assessment culture and pedagogic philosophy, but also the extent of the reflective awareness which encourages their professional growth. 

Feedback and reflective practice are considered as factors which foreground the flux of assessment data as a method which capitalizes on quality instruction. Data collection included four case studies and structured interviews and it was analyzed within the framework of Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA). 

Research Themes provided insights into the EFL teachers’ schema constructs in assessment culture and unveiled dimensions of the Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) that teachers have developed through various strata specifications. 

The local context of Greece and its impact on teachers’ self-perceptions of navigating assessment procedures with the intentionality of harnessing the potential of Formative Assessment is indicative of the interrelation between quality instruction strategies and effective learning outcomes.

Wednesday 29 May - Hybrid

• 9.00 – 9.40: Elin Merete Løvnæseth Hauer: Inclusive Assessment – Learning Conversations as Formative Assessment in the Subject English
• 9.45-10.30: Isa Steinmann: Unexpected Gender Differences In Teacher Ratings Of Academic Skills And School Track Recommendations 

Elin Løvnæseth Hauer. Faculty of Teacher Education and Pedagogy, Høgskolen i Innlandet, Norway

This project will examine how learning conversations are used in an interactive situation by ESL teachers in 5 different lower secondary schools in Norway. Furthermore, it is a study of how learning conversations are used as an assessment method in the mapping of the students’ current level of competence and skills; when used in teacher-student interactions where the students are seen as active participants. 

The learning conversations referred to in this project are the conversations where students and teachers engage in sustained shared thinking where all students are given the opportunity for development, mastery, learning, and well-being based on their circumstances. Using formative assessment practices and adjusting instructions based on student needs, gives the teachers possibilities to promote individual learning and help students to reach their full potential.

This is a qualitative study based on teacher interviews about inclusive assessment and learning conversations, video observations of learning conversations followed by video-stimulated recall interviews with the participating teachers, and group interviews with the participating students.

Research Question: How can learning conversations be used as a formative assessment method in mapping of the students’ current level of competence and skills, and provide individualized support based on the students’ needs in promoting individual learning?

Dr Isa Steinmann. OsloMet, Norway

Previous research suggests that girls get better school marks and are more often recommended for academic school tracks after primary school. Using data from a representative sample of 4529 students who were followed longitudinally between grades 1–4 in Germany, this study adds nuance to this picture. 

In simple logistic regression models, girls were found to get more favourable teacher ratings in terms of language and written skills and more favourable school track recommendations, while boys got better teacher ratings in terms of nature knowledge and mathematical skills. 

In models that included control variables (achievement test scores, teacher-rated ability to concentrate, teacher-rated social skills, and teacher-rated personality characteristics), gender gaps shifted to the boys’ advantage, with written skills remaining the only domain with female advantages. 

Linear growth models showed that in three out of four cases, gender gaps in teacher-rated skills widened over the course of primary school.

Programme of Presentations Autumn 2023

Wednesday 15 november.

• 9.00 – 9.30: Siv Måseidvåg Gamlem: ‘How the assessment system in Norway operates’  

Wednesday 6 December

• 10.30.00-11.00: Karin Vogt: ‘Artificial Intelligence-AI as a stress test for Classroom-based Language Assessment-CBLA’
• 11.00-13.00: Asli Saglam: ‘ChatGPT in the Classroom: Pre-Service English Language Teachers' Perspectives on AI’

Programme of presentations Spring 2023

Wednesday 25 january.

• 9.00- 9.30: Justyna Bell: Key Inclusive Development Strategies for Lifelong Learning -  KIDS4ALL (kids4all.eu).  
• 9.30-10.00: Kirsti Marie Jegstad: Critical Thinking in Primary Education (KriT)
• 10.00-10.30: Michel Alexandre Cabot: Critical Thinking and Intercultural Competence Instigated by Teacher-in-Role: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Wednesday 15 February

• 9.00-10.30: Tone Holt Nielsen: Business English Lingua Franca Learning Needs; a study of communication practices in Norwegian Multinational Corporations

Wednesday 22 March

• 9.00-9.30:  Henning Fjørtoft: Going Gradeless (ntnu.no) 
• 9.30-10.00: Harald Eriksen: Results from a survey on history education in Norway
• 10.00-10.45: Cecilie Andreassen: A literature review on quality in written texts on 5th grade in Norway

Wednesday 5 April

• 9.00-9.30: Irina Engeness: AI4AfL- Artificial intelligence for assessment for learning to enhance learning and teaching in the 21st century (hiof.no) 
• 9.30-10.00: Magdalini Liontou: How do Finnish and Chinese students’ diverse pedagogical experiences shape feedback interpretation?
• 10.00-10.30: Dmitri Leontjev and Ari Huhta

Wednesday 3 May

• 9.00-9.30: Isa Steinmann: Ongoing research project on inconsistent responders to mixed-worded questionnaire scales
• 9.30-10.00: Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu and Salahuddin Hawa: Teaching and learning ESP in a fragile, conflict-affected area.
• 10.00-10.30: Karin Vogt and Dina Tsagari: What's New? Pandemic-induced changes in language assessment practices and cultures.  Please answer the questionnaire (docs.google.com) . 

Wednesday 31 May

• 9.00-9.30: Therese Tishakov: What English teachers say and do: Beliefs about language and language teaching in multilingual school settings
• 9.30-10.00: Tony Burner: The implementation of the English curriculum in primary schools
• 10.00-10.45: Lene Kristine Marsby Ramberg: California teachers before and ten years after the Federal government No Child Left Behind Act

Programme of Presentations Autumn 2022

Wednesday 24 august 2022, 9.00-10.30, oslo time.

• Cecilie Hamnes Carlsen: ‘IMPECT at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences’ NFR-funded research project (hvl.no) .
• Therese Tishakov: ‘Studying the language beliefs of English teachers in Norway - methodological considerations’.

Wednesday 21 September 2022, 9.00-10.30, Oslo time

• Harald Eriksen: ‘Results from survey on history education/on washback effect from exams on language arts teaching’.
• Lynell Chvala: ‘Teachers’ pedagogical vision for 21st century English education’ .              

Wednesday 19 October 2022, 9.00-10.30, Oslo time

• Thomais Rousoulioti and Christina Nicole Giannikas: ‘Parents’ New Role and Needs During the COVID-19 Educational Emergency’.
• Ece Sevgi and Asli Lidice Göktürk Saglam: ‘LAL EVO 2022 adventure and related research in progress’.
• Anna Mouti: ‘Assessing Language Needs and Investigating Plurilingual Profiles of Adult Refugees and Migrants’.

Wednesday 16 November 2022, 9.00-10.30, Oslo time

• Dina Tsagari: Presentation of SCALED-EEA project.
• Katalin Egri Ku-Mesu: ‘Decolonial perspectives on ELT’.
• Olga Kvasova, Viktoriya Osidak and Karin Vogt: ‘Exploring the use of CEFR CV in Ukrainian context: work in progress’. 

Programme of Presentations Spring 2022

Wednesday 2 february 2022, 9.00-11.00 am, oslo time.

• Lynell Chvala ‘Teachers’ vision for 21st century English education: Expanding awareness of “little e” English and English as a lingua franca (ELF) in Norwegian basic education’.

Wednesday 16 February 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Niki Kouvdou ‘Implementing systematic classroom observation for the assessment of oral performance in the multicultural EFL class’.
• Eleni Meletiadou ‘The use of peer assessment as an inclusive learning strategy in Higher Education Institutions’.

Wednesday 16 March 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Astrid Gillespie ‘Lower Secondary School students’ Self-Assessment in EFL’.

Wednesday 30 March 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Lucilla Lopriore ‘Challenges of ELF in Italian schools’.
• Sviatlana Karpava ‘Critical Digital Literacy Development: Teaching and Learning during Pandemic’.

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Trine Gedde-Dahl ‘Skriveutvikling fra ulike perspektiver’.

Wednesday 18 May 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Harald Eriksen – draft about survey-based research (tentative).

Wednesday 25 May 2022, 9.00-10.30 am, Oslo time

• Henrik Bøhn ‘Intercultural competence in the Norwegian school context’.
• Hiltrud Awad ‘Intercultural Competence Assessment’.

Programme of Presentations Autumn 2021

Wednesday 15 september, 8.30-11.00 am, oslo time.

• 8.30-10.00: Harald Eriksen ‘Feedback in the homeschool environment’. 
• 10.00-10.15: Hiltrud Awad ‘Assessment tool for cross-linguistic and intercultural competences at the University of Antwerp in Belgium’ Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (Horizon 2020) Postdoc fellowship.
• 10.15-11.00: Nansia Kyriakou & Dina Tsagari ‘Experienced but detached from reality: theorizing the relationship between experience and rater effects’. 

Wednesday 3 November, 9.00-11.00 am, Oslo time

• Stine Sørlie & Hanne Lauvik:  ‘Accessible assessment? Inclusive practices in language testing and assessment’.
• Armin Berger ‘Language assessment literacy’.
• Nikh Kouvdou ‘Classroom-based assessment in multicultural EFL contexts’.

Wednesday 8 December, 9.00-11.00 am, Oslo time

• Magda Liontou ‘University Students' Perceptions of assessment: a case study of Finnish and Chinese university students’.
• Τhomai Rousoulioti & Ifigenia Karagouni ‘Dynamic Assessment on Writing: A Case Study of Adult Greek Second Language Learners’.
• Leanne Henderson ‘Modern languages qualifications in the UK: issues of difficulty, grading and decision-making’.

Christopher Brumfit Essay Prize

The journal  Language Teaching from Cambridge University Press announces the award of an essay prize which honours one of the founding editors of this journal.

Read more about the Christopher Brumfit Essay Prize 2024 (cambridge.org) .

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What's in a name? Why ‘SLA’ is no longer fit for purpose and the emerging, more equitable alternatives

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This essay argues that, in the face of a number of paradigmatically important shifts in applied linguistics over the past twenty or so years, the term ‘second language acquisition’ (SLA) is no longer fit for purpose, insomuch as it misrepresents or excludes the object of research of many academics in the field today. This essay first offers evidence of the paradigm changes in question before charting the history of the term ‘second language acquisition’ and documenting a number of calls for change that have to date gone largely unheeded. It then presents the emerging alternative terms that constitute the core of many contemporary definitions of SLA: ‘additional language learning’, and ‘additional language development’, briefly discussing the relative merits of both as well as other less likely, but descriptively accurate, alternatives. It concludes by pointing out, firstly, that the changes proposed may be inevitable – we have essentially already redefined the field, we just need to acknowledge it – and secondly, that it is descriptively and ethically appropriate to do so.

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• DOI: 10.17072/2218-1067-2022-1-49-57
• Corpus ID: 249915637

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Essay: Salman Rushdie’s Next Act

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Salman Rushdie’s Next Act

In his life-affirming memoir “knife,” the writer shows how society must respond to untrammeled hatred..

• United States

It was more than 33 years after the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic legal ruling, condemning Salman Rushdie to death when the novelist was attacked by a deluded man. This man had not read the novel The Satanic Verses , which had so offended the ayatollah and prompted the fatwa. Nor had Khomeini, who had been smarting under the humiliation of an Iran-Iraq truce and sought to divert the attention of angry Iranians by singling out the book, which he said insulted Islam.

On Aug. 12, 2022, Rushdie was at a literary festival in Chautauqua, a calm retreat in upstate New York. That morning, he was meant to be speaking with Henry Reese, the founder of City of Asylum , a project in Pittsburgh that offers refuge to writers fleeing persecution. Rushdie had helped raise funds when the project launched in 2004. The tranquil surroundings in 2022 symbolized the project’s central idea: a place where writers can be at peace, safe from harm, so they might reflect and write again without fear.

In a mere 27 seconds—the time it takes to read a Shakespearean sonnet, as Rushdie points out in his hauntingly engrossing, sobering, and ultimately life-affirming new memoir, Knife —the man (who Rushdie does not name in the book) rushed toward Rushdie and plunged a knife all over his body, more than a dozen times, severing his tendons and nerves in his left hand. Rushdie lay sprawling on the ground, still conscious. His life was saved, foremost, by Reese (who also took blows and was injured), a doctor who rushed to the site, and other emergency responders who tried to stop the flow of blood.

A long process of recovery followed, permanently altering Rushdie’s life. The attacker had managed to pierce Rushdie’s right eye, destroying its optic nerve; slashed Rushdie’s neck; and wounded other organs. But he had missed vital veins and arteries—only because he did not know how to kill.

Rushdie has spent his life rebelling against the idea that people can be killed for their thought. He has challenged those with power—politicians or religious leaders—and been a persistent and outspoken champion of free speech. Freedom to imagine, think, write, doubt, disagree, challenge, hold one’s own, be irreverent, laugh, ridicule, rejoice, celebrate: These are the foundational principles of his thinking, work, and life.

Rushdie, photographed in his home in London, circa 1988. Horst Tappe/Getty Images

In the process, Rushdie has ended up defending even those who have later profoundly disagreed with him. He has supported the freedom of those who wish him ill. He is in the public eye, but he has not spoken out to court publicity or limelight; rather, he reminds us why we must keep the light shining on the idea of liberty (because darker forces want to snuff it out) and that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. In his earlier memoir, Joseph Anton , published in 2012, Rushdie wrote about himself in the third person, saying he was aware that defending freedom was a battle that could cost his life: “Is the thing for which you are fighting worth losing your life for? And he had found it possible to answer YES. He was prepared to die if dying became necessary for what Carmen Callil had called ‘a bloody book’.”

During his many years in hiding, there had been undisclosed attempts on his life. Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses and a scholar of Islamic art, had been murdered; Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of The Satanic Verses , was stabbed but survived; and William Nygaard, the book’s Norwegian publisher, was shot. As Rushdie recently recounted in an interview, when he reached out to Nygaard to apologize, Nygaard said: “Salman, don’t apologize. I’m a grown-up. I knew that I wanted to publish The Satanic Verses , and I’m very happy that I did …. Guess what. I’ve just ordered a very large reprint.”

As Rushdie writes in this new memoir, one of his worst nightmares is losing his eyesight; in the attack, he lost one eye. Long before the attack, he had written the manuscript of his 2023 novel, Victory City (his 16th book since the fatwa), in which the protagonist is blinded on orders of an enraged ruler. As Rushdie recovered at home, he was gripped with nightmarish visions of the Duke of Gloucester being blinded in King Lear and the opening sequence of the Luis Buñuel movie An Andalusian Dog , in which a cloud drifting across the moon becomes a razor blade slicing an eye.

Knife , which came out earlier this year, tells in excruciating detail the pain Rushdie endured after the attack. The real hero of the book is Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, whose courage, affirmation, support, and love helped him recover. Courage, Ernest Hemingway wrote, is grace under pressure; Rushdie has shown that courage leads to triumph, for it shows defiant will in the face of violence. Rushdie’s remarkable genius—of word associations; of astonishing memory recalling stories from myths, literature, and history; of playfulness—remains undiminished.

In this reflective memoir, Rushdie writes how in late summer 2022 he felt he had forewarning of the attack. A few nights before the attempt on his life, he dreamt about a man with a spear attacking him. But nightmares must not intrude on reality, Rushdie believed. And yet, that morning he saw a frenzied man race towards him. As Rushdie recalls in the book, his first thought was: “So it is you. Here you are.” And then: “Why now? Really? It’s been so long. Why now, after all these years?”

The questions Rushdie had—Why now? Why after all these years?—are not rhetorical. Born in India’s most cosmopolitan city, then known as Bombay, Rushdie went on to make polyglot London his home. But at the turn of the millennium, with the fatwa clipping his wings and continued uncharitable and churlish criticism of his writing, he decided to leave London for New York, the international city with a mind of its own. Rushdie wanted to remake himself, to leave life under the shadow of the fatwa, which often made it seem as if he had written only one book.

For those of us who grew up in post-independence India, and particularly those from Bombay, Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children made many of us feel English was our language, as well. We could do it, too; it was not an alien language. We too owned it.

I first met Rushdie in 1983, on his first visit to India after he won the Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children . (I’ve interviewed him several times since, reviewed his works, and in recent years been in conversations with him at literary festivals.) Many of us were appalled when, in 1988, India became the first country in the world to effectively ban The Satanic Verses by preventing its import; its Indian publisher, meanwhile, decided not to publish it. At the time, I worked at the magazine India Today and wrote among the earliest editorials criticizing that profoundly illiberal act by the Indian government.

The Satanic Verses is easily among the most imaginative novels of all time. It is about hybridity, migration, and our divided selves—where angels take on the garb of devils, and devils can deceive and appear angelic. It is multilayered. It is about two men landing in Britain from an exploded jet, one of whom is an actor who loses his mind and imagines the birth of a great religion. In the hallucination the protagonist imagines listening to divine voices and later rejects some verses as inspired by the Satan. This is from an episode from Islamic history and ripe with speculative possibilities. What kind of an idea are you, the protagonist asks in the novel, “Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? – The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.”

Rushdie persists, and remains important, because of that spirit of defiance. The Satanic Verses celebrated the migrant, the marginalized, the one cast on an alien shore forced to adopt new norms. The migrant blended into the city and changed it, though the city remained “visible but unseen.” He had to transform himself, and in that confused state it became difficult to distinguish between history and myth, between fact and lies, between certainty and doubt.

The fatwa was the ultimate test. Rushdie could change himself and write different kinds of books—safer, simpler, offering comfort. He could become less of an artist, scared into submission, avoiding risks. Or he could write angry books seeking revenge. Both approaches would have distracted him from the path he had chosen, that of a storyteller. “One of the greatest acts of will that I’ve ever performed in my life was to try and not let my writing be knocked off track [by the fatwa],” he said recently.

The British government offered Rushdie protection after the fatwa was issued, and some of his closest friends—Ian McEwan, Christopher Hitchens, James Fenton, Martin Amis, and others—defended him. But many other public figures, including John le Carré, John Berger, Germaine Greer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, then-Prince Charles, and Jimmy Carter, all felt Rushdie was somehow wrong; that he had overstepped the mark, and that offending the faith was simply not done.

Rushdie was active on issues of race in Britain, speaking out for racial equality and joining anti-racism campaigns during the tumultuous 1970s when the right wing National Front party began marching through British cities, inspired by Winston Churchill’s opposition of migration from Caribbean countries in the 1950s and Conservative parliamentarian Enoch Powell’s speech warning of “ rivers of blood ” if uncontrolled migration from former colonies continued. When graffiti saying “KBW,” or “Keep Britain White,” began to appear in immigrant neighborhoods, Rushdie spoke up. But after the fatwa, many of the people he supported also wanted him prosecuted, and some were burning The Satanic Verses in British towns.

From left to right: American authors Susan Sontag, Gay Talese, E. L. Doctorow, and Norman Mailer are seated among a group of people at Writers in Support of Salman Rushdie in New York City on Feb. 22, 1989. Sara Krulwich/New York Times Co./Getty Images

As Rushdie puts it in Joseph Anton : “He needed to understand that there were people who would never love him. No matter how carefully he explained his work or clarified his intentions in creating it, they would not love him. The unreasoning mind, driven by the doubt-free absolutes of faith, could not be convinced by reason. Those who had demonized him would never say, ‘Oh, look, he’s not a demon after all.’ … He needed, now, to be clear of what he was fighting for. Freedom of speech, freedom of the imagination, freedom from fear, and the beautiful, ancient art of which he was privileged to be a practitioner. Also skepticism, irreverence, doubt, satire, comedy, and unholy glee. He would never again flinch from the defense of these things.”

In Knife , there is a section where Rushdie imagines a conversation with the failed assassin, who tells Rushdie: “You are hated by two billion people …. You must feel like a worm. Beneath all your smart talk, you know you are less than a worm. To be crushed beneath our heel.” It hurt Rushdie that India, where he was born, was the first country to restrict The Satanic Verses , and that India’s Hindu nationalist leadership had nothing substantial to say about the attack on Rushdie in 2022. Rushdie didn’t have anything good to say about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politics either—in speeches, in a short piece he wrote for an anthology I co-edited when India turned 75, and most importantly in Victory City , which was published after the attack and is a love letter to the pluralist India getting lost in the Modi era.

Victory City , published in early 2023, tells the story of Pampa Kampana and the city she creates, Bisnaga. Bisnaga is a corrupted way to pronounce Vijaynagara (“city of victory”), a real city-empire in southern India between the 14th and 16th centuries. As a girl, Pampa Kampana saw her mother burn herself, and a goddess gave her divine powers and a curse: She was to fight to protect women from being burned and would live a long time. She was to see both the success and failure of her mission, because what is life, if not victory and defeat? The narrative she writes is appropriately called Jayaparajaya , or “victory and defeat.”

By spraying magical seeds on the ground, Pampa created Bisnaga and lived for 247 years—a period approximating the length of the Vijayanagara empire, and also, as Judith Shulevitz noted in the Atlantic , coinciding with the length of time from 1776, the year the United States declared independence, to 2023, the year of the novel’s publication. Pampa Kampana’s vision—tolerance, women’s rights, equality—coincided with the liberal instincts of India’s founding fathers, which the Modi administration seems so determined to overturn. Victory City ends: “While they lived, they were victors, or vanquished, or both. Now they are neither. … I myself am nothing now. All that remains is this city of words. Words are the only victors.”

Augustus expelled Ovid, but Ovid’s poetry survived. Joseph Stalin sent Osip Mandelstam to the Gulag, but Mandelstam’s verses remain; Stalin’s deeds only record Soviet darkness. Francisco Franco’s fascists killed Federico García Lorca, but his works are recalled around the world; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn outlived the Soviet Union, and Liu Xiaobo will be remembered long after Xi Jinping is forgotten. Words outlive tyrants.

Writers gather to read selected works of Rushdie, one week after he was stabbed, during a rally to show solidarity for free expression outside the New York Public Library in New York City on Aug. 19, 2022. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

In 2000, Rushdie came to the United States. He wanted to live his life, enjoy his liberty, and pursue happiness. He succeeded, although his early days in New York weren’t easy. Some people would balk being near him, and he thought the only way he could stop that was by behaving as if he were not scared. He had to show them that there was nothing to be scared about. As the years passed, not only was it possible to see Rushdie at art galleries, parties, restaurants, or walking in a park or strolling on a sidewalk, he continued to speak for liberty. As Knife shows, through love, and Griffiths, his wife, he discovered happiness. It is not easy to write about happiness. Rushdie cites the French writer Henry de Montherlant: “Happiness writes in white ink on white pages.” Easy to experience, difficult to describe.

Rushdie speaks on stage at the 2023 PEN America Literary Gala at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on May 18, 2023. Cindy Ord/Getty Images

Rushdie fought for the freedom of thought and the freedom to speak long before he wrote his first novel, Grimus , in 1975. He was involved with the literary and human rights society English PEN and later was president of PEN America. He helped setting up Reese’s City of Asylum project, and with enlightened European activists he supported the formation of the International Cities of Refuge Network , a coalition of 86 cities in Europe and the Americas that has provided temporary refuge to more than 200 writers and artists from around the world. He has unfailingly helped writers seeking help— supporting Taslima Nasrin of Bangladesh, who was hounded by fundamentalists, and honoring the slain cartoonists of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo . As former chair of the Writers in Prison Committee at PEN International, on a few occasions I had to reach out to Rushdie to seek a statement from him, or some intervention or other help, to help a writer in distress. He responded promptly and unflinchingly.

But being firm in his commitment to freedom of expression does not make Rushdie stubborn. He has reflected on the spread of the internet and its profusion of voices and what they can mean. The internet lets lies travel fast and wide (including those with sinister consequences, such as election denial or questioning the effectiveness of science and vaccines). In a conversation I had with him and the German writer Carolin Emcke in 2021, Rushdie reflected on European restrictions on lies and propaganda and whether they could be effective in stopping the spread of hate speech. “One has to distinguish between hate speech and falsehood,” he said, “and the speech with which we disagree. We have to somehow find that line.”

Rushdie has discovered outrageous statements attributed to him spread far and wide on the internet, reappearing despite his periodic, strenuous, and exasperated denials of the attributions. In a 2020 story he wrote in the New Yorker , “The Old Man in the Piazza,” he showed that Manichaean divide of false binaries is crowding out nuance and arguments.

Rushdie is also dismayed by the way the progressive world has ceded the battle of free speech to the unscrupulous right. In Knife , He writes of progressives’ priorities evolving, wherein “protecting the rights and sensibilities of groups perceived as vulnerable would take precedence over freedom of speech, which the Nobel laureate Elias Canetti had called ‘the tongue set free.’” The right, Rushdie writes, has “a new social agenda, one that sounded a lot like an old one: authoritarianism, backed up by unscrupulous media, big money, complicit politicians, and corrupt judges”—far away from the ideas of freedom Rushdie understood, of Thomas Paine, of the Enlightenment, of John Stuart Mill.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) speaks with Rushdie and his wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in Berlin on May 16. Guido Bergmann/Bundesregierung via Getty Images

One question Rushdie reflects on in Knife is: What to do with the gift of time he now has, thanks to extraordinary love from his family and close friends and the exceptional skills of the medical professionals who treated him? He would like nothing better than to be what he has wished to be—the writer in a room making things up and writing those stories. Once, Rushdie did not think he would write about the attack, but his agent and friend Andrew Wylie was convinced that he would. In Knife , Rushdie explains his change of heart: “To write would be my way of owning what happened, taking charge of it, making it mine, refusing to be a mere victim. I would answer violence with art.”

Salman Rushdie’s life, ideas, literature, and beliefs have been steadfast in upholding love over hate, truth over falsehoods, doubt over certainty, defiance over compliance, and art over noise. Joseph Anton was written in the third person, as if Rushdie was looking at himself by stepping outside that experience—of the fatwa—and leaving it behind him. With Knife , he has returned center-stage with a singular account in the first person.

Rushdie loves comics; when he joined social media, he doffed his proverbial hat to Popeye the Sailor and wrote, “I yam what I yam.” And so he is.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in New York. He is the author of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and Its Unquiet Legacy , and he is working on a book about the Gujaratis.

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