Bestselling author Salman Rushdie is recovering from stab wounds in the neck and chest but is still in critical condition. The author who was brutally stabbed on August 12 was also taken off the ventilator.
“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” said his son Zafar Rushdi on Twitter on Aug 14.
He will be undergoing extensive hospitalization. His agent Andrew Wylie told the Associated Press on Aug 14 that although he is heading in the right direction it would be a long road to recovery.
Rushdie who has received death threats for years due to his provocative writing and was attacked as he was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
He suffered a damaged liver, severed nerves in an arm and is likely to lose an eye.
The New York police arrested a suspect after the attack, 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey. He has been charged with attempted second-degree murder and assault. Matar pleaded not guilty during his arraignment.
Investigators believe Matar was not alone as he was born a decade after the publication of the controversial Satanic Verses.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt told the judge the attack was pre-planned. President Joe Biden also issued a statement saying that his wife and him were “shocked and saddened” by the “vicious attack”.
“Salman Rushdie – with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced stands for essential, universal ideals. These are the building blocks of any free and open society.”
Rushdie was rushed to hospital by helicopter. The talk’s event moderator Henry Reese, 73, also suffered a facial injury and has since been released from hospital.
Rushdie was born in India and has written more than a dozen books. His book The Satanic Verses was banned in the late 80’s in Iran and is considered by many Muslims as blasphemous.
Then Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini issued a fatwa or edict calling for his death and although the Iranian government is not involved with this, in 2012 another Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
However it is unclear whether Friday’s attack was connected to the fatwa.
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