After being stabbed two months ago, 75-year-old Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and can no longer use a hand. That’s what his agent Andrew Wylie said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País.
“His wounds are deep. He lost sight in one eye where he was stabbed. He suffered three serious neck injuries and lost function in one hand because his nerves were severed from the stab wounds. And he suffered 15 other chest injuries. He suffered a brutal attack,” said Wylie, who is considered the most influential literary agent in the world, on the sidelines of the Frankfurt International Book Fair. .
Andrew Wylie didn’t want to reveal whether the “The Satanic Verses” author is still in the hospital: “I can’t tell you where he is. He will survive. That’s the most important.”
Salman Rushdie was stabbed to death on August 12, 2022 while onstage delivering an artistic freedom speech at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. The writer was taken to the hospital by helicopter and initially artificially ventilated. Police identified the perpetrator of the attack as a 24-year-old man named Hadi Matar. Nothing was initially known about the motive for the attack. According to information from the television network NBC, the man was born in California and, according to police, showed “sympathy for Shia extremism” on social media. Matar pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court on August 18, claiming he tried to kill the writer because he would insult Islam.
The then Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who rose to worldwide fame after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1989, issued a fatwa ordering the assassination of Rushdie for blasphemy against Muhammad and the Koran would have. A bounty of over $3 million was later placed on his head. Rushdie was placed under British police protection and hidden under an assumed name for over a decade. In the early 2000s, after regaining freedom of movement, he moved to New York.
In the past, Wylie and Rushdie had often discussed the possibility of such an attack. “The greatest danger that Salman faced after so many years after the fatwa was imposed is that some random person will appear out of nowhere and attack him – said the literary agent – There is no way to resist, because it is completely unexpected and illogical. It was like killing John Lennon.”