Salman Rushdie suffered severe injuries in an earlier attack and is currently on a ventilator. The New York TimesFriday night
“The news is not good,” Wylie said via email. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”
Rushdie, 75 years old, remains in Pennsylvania after being airlifted following the attack.
Rushdie was due to give a speech at the Chautauqua Institution upstate New York. But he was stabbed in the back by a man running riot. He was to speak about America being a safe place for exiled writers.
According to police, Hadi Matear, 24, a suspect from Fairview in New Jersey, was detained by officers. Multiple reports.
The New York Post, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported that Matar has made social media posts in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard.
“We don’t have any indication of a motive at this time,” Major Eugene J. Staniszewski told reporters, according to the Post.
The Booker Prize–winning author of 1981’s “Midnight’s Children,” Rushdie is best known for his controversial 1988 work “The Satanic Verses,”Many Muslims considered this blasphemous because it depicted the Prophet Muhammad.
Under the late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian government issued a fatwā in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death and put a $3 million bounty on his head.
Two translators were fatally stabbed in 1991. The Washington PostReport at the time.
Rushdie fled to the U.K. in hiding, but slowly returned to society a decade later. “Oh, I have to live my life.” His 2012 memoir, “Joseph Anton,” charted his life with the fatwā.
Today’s Iranian government has distanced itself from Khomeini’s treatment of Rushdie, but resentment and the threat of violence has remained a constant.
