British author Salman Rushdie, whose writings have made him the target of Iranian death threats, was on a ventilator and could lose an eye after he was repeatedly stabbed at a literary event in New York state on Friday, August 12.
Following the attack just before 11am local time, Mr. Rushdie, 75, was airlifted to the hospital where he needed emergency surgery, and his agent said in a statement obtained by The New York Times that "the news is not good."
"Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged," said agent Andrew Wylie, who added that as of now Mr. Rushdie cannot speak.
New York state police identified the suspect involved in the attack as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from Fairfield, New Jersey. A probable motive remained unclear. Mr. Matar was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in southern Lebanon, its mayor Ali Tehfe told The Associated Press.
Police said Mr. Rushdie was stabbed in the neck as well as the abdomen. A number of people rushed to the stage and took the suspect to the ground, before a trooper present at the event arrested him. A doctor in the audience administered medical care until emergency first responders arrived. An interviewer onstage, 73-year-old Ralph Henry Reese, suffered a facial injury but has been released from the hospital, police said.
The attack occurred at the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts arts programs in a tranquil lakeside community 110 kilometers south of Buffalo, New York.
Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, told AFP he saw the suspect run on to the stage where Mr. Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously." Mr. LeVan, a Chautauqua regular, said the suspect "was trying to stab him as many times as possible before he was subdued," adding that he believed the man "was trying to kill" Mr. Rushdie. "There were gasps of horror and panic from the crowd," the professor said.
Mr. LeVan said witnessing the event had left him "shaken," adding he considered Chautauqua a safe place of creative freedom. "To know that this happened here, and to see it – it was horrific," he said. "What I saw today was the essence of intolerance."
Another witness, John Stein, told ABC that the assailant "started stabbing on the right side of the head, of the neck. And there was blood... erupting."
A decade in hiding
Mr. Rushdie, now 75, was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel Midnight's Children in 1981, which won international praise and Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India. But it was his 1988 book The Satanic Verses garnered a different sort of attention when it sparked a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for his death by Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The novel was considered by some Muslims to be blasphemous and disrespectful to the Prophet Mohammed.
Mr. Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and today identifies as an atheist, was forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head – which remains today.
He was granted police protection by the government in the UK and spent nearly a decade in hiding, moving houses repeatedly and being unable to tell his children where he lived. Mr. Rushdie only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran in 1998 said it would not support his assassination.
Now living in New York, he is an advocate of freedom of speech, notably launching a strong defense of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after its staff were gunned down by Islamists in Paris in 2015. The magazine had published drawings of Mohammed that drew furious reactions from Muslims worldwide.
'The neck of the devil'
Conservative media in Iran hailed the attack on Rushdie, with one state-owned paper saying the "neck of the devil" had been "cut by a razor".
Ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan, whose chief is appointed by current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote: "Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York."
In Tehran, the Associated Press spoke to people on the streets about the attack. "I don’t know Salman Rushdie, but I am happy to hear that he was attacked since he insulted Islam," said Reza Amiri, a 27-year-old delivery driver. "This is the fate for anybody who insults sanctities."
Others, however, were worried that Iran could become even more cut off from the world as tensions remain high over its tattered nuclear deal.
"I feel those who did it are trying to isolate Iran," said Mahshid Barati, a 39-year-old geography teacher. "This will negatively affect relations with many, even Russia and China."
Global leaders voiced anger over the attack and support for Mr. Rushdie, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying the author "embodied freedom" and that "his battle is ours, a universal one."
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson meanwhile said he was "appalled" and was sending thoughts to Mr. Rushdie's loved ones, and praised the author for "exercising a right we should never cease to defend."
An 'essential voice'
Threats and boycotts continue against literary events that Mr. Rushdie attends, and his knighthood in 2007 sparked protests in Iran and Pakistan, where a government minister said the honor justified suicide bombings.
The fatwa failed to stifle Mr. Rushdie's writing and inspired his memoir Joseph Anton, named after his alias while in hiding and written in the third person. Midnight's Children – which runs over 600 pages – has been adapted for the stage and silver screen, and his books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Suzanne Nossel, head of the PEN America organization, said the free speech advocacy group was "reeling from shock and horror." "Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face," Ms. Nossel said in a statement.
"Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We hope and believe fervently that his essential voice cannot and will not be silenced."