Desk Report
Publish: 14 Aug 2022, 11:21 am
Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck and torso onstage at a lecture in New York state on Friday and airlifted to a hospital || Photo: Collected
Noted author
Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and is able to talk again, a day
after being stabbed.
Rushdie,
75, was attacked while speaking at an event in New York State and was in critical condition.
His
agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed the news to US media but had previously said
the author may lose an eye.
Rushdie
has faced years of death threats for his novel The Satanic Verses, which some
Muslims see as blasphemous.
The
man charged over the attack pleaded not guilty to attempted murder on Saturday and has been remanded in custody without bail.
Hadi
Matar, 24, is accused of running onto the stage and stabbing Rushdie at least
10 times in the face, neck, and abdomen. Following the attack, Wylie said Rushdie
had suffered severed nerves in one arm, damage to his liver, and would likely lose
an eye.
While
the author's latest condition has not yet been updated, several fellow writers
and scholars tweeted their relief at finding out the novelist was now able to
talk.
Michael
Hill, the president of the Chautauqua Institution where the attack took place,
also tweeted the news.
Henry
Reese, who had been due to interview Rushdie at the event, suffered a minor
head injury. He is the co-founder of a non-profit organization that provides
sanctuary to writers exiled under the threat of persecution.
Before
the attack, Rushdie was about to give a speech about how the US has served as a
haven for such writers.
The
novelist was forced into hiding for nearly 10 years after The Satanic Verses
was published in 1988. Many Muslims reacted with fury to it, arguing that the
portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad was a grave insult to their faith.
He
faced death threats and the then-Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a
fatwa - or decree - calling for Rushdie's assassination, placing a $3m (£2.5m)
bounty on the author's head.
The
fatwa remains active, and although Iran's government has distanced itself from Khomeini's decree, a quasi-official Iranian religious foundation added a
further $500,000 to the reward in 2012.
Rushdie
was born in Bombay, India in 1947. He was sent to boarding school in England
before going on to study history at the University of Cambridge. In 2007, he
was knighted for services to literature.
There
has been an outpouring of support for him, with the attack widely condemned as
an assault on freedom of expression.
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