MAYVILLE, N.Y.>> With a mix of humor and graphic detail, Salman Rushdie calmly told a jury Tuesday about the frenzied moments in August 2022 when a masked man rushed at him on a stage in western New York and repeatedly slashed him with a knife, leaving him with terrible injuries.

“It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought,” the renowned author said, adding that the people who subdued the assailant likely saved his life.

Just a short drive from where the attack at the Chautauqua Institution occurred, Rushdie took the stand during the second day of testimony at the trial of Hadi Matar, 27, who has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault in the attack, which also wounded another man.

It was the first time since the stabbing that the 77-year-old writer found himself in the same room as Matar, whom Rushdie refused to even name when he looked back on the day in his 2023 memoir, “Knife.” The book called him “the A,” as in assassin, or assailant or asinine.

In the memoir, Rushdie imagined a conversation with his assailant, fabricating a dialogue — a strained attempt at understanding — they might have had should the two ever speak.

But on Tuesday they hardly seemed to acknowledge each other. Rushdie on occasion looked off to his right, where the defendant sat some 20 feet away, but showed no sign of recognition. Matar, with attorneys on either side, rarely raised his head while Rushdie spoke. District Attorney Jason Schmidt did not ask Rushdie to identify Matar. Rushdie testified that he got just a brief look at the man who rushed across the stage and stabbed him repeatedly with a 10-inch blade.

In testimony stricken from the record at the defense’s request, he added: “I was very struck by his eyes, which were dark and seemed very ferocious.”

Rushdie said he first thought his attacker was striking him with a fist. “But I saw a large quantity of blood pouring onto my clothes,” he said. “He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing.”