Salman Rushdie is the
2025 Writer in the World Prize Recipient
We are pleased to announce Salman Rushdie is the recipient of our 2025 Writer in the World Prize.
The author of 25 fiction and nonfiction books, Rushdie has long been recognized around the world for his brilliant writing and his unfailing courage in defending freedom of speech, sometimes at the risk of his own safety. His latest book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, is a deeply personal account of enduring and surviving an attempt on his life in August of 2022. It is a love story written for his wife, Eliza, and all the doctors and physical therapists who helped him recover, along with his global community of readers and fellow writers.
We honor Rushdie above all for his amazing body of work, his indelible books of fiction and nonfiction, and for continuing to write them in the face of immeasurable opposition and danger. As we will see during his conversation with his fellow novelist and great friend Colum McCann, Salman Rushdie is many remarkable things, but above all, and always, he is a writer and a teller of stories, and a master at that.
ABOUT THE WRITER IN THE WORLD PRIZE
The Writer in the World Prize was established in 2021 by SVWC board members. It recognizes a writer whose work expresses a rare combination of literary talent and moral imagination, helping us to better understand the world and our place in it. We honor the recipients of this prize—some of the greatest writers of our time—for their vast gifts to society and contributions to the global canon of literature. And, in keeping with a founding goal of the Conference, we celebrate the importance and lasting beauty of the written word in all its forms.
This $20,000 prize is funded by SVWC board members.
PAST PRIZE RECIPIENTS
Barry Lopez — 2021
Abraham Verghese — 2023
Margaret Atwood — 2024
Salman Rushdie — 2025