Salman Rushdie: the writer lost an eye and the use of a hand after the attack in August

After the stabbing two months ago, 75-year-old Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and can no longer use a hand. This was said by his agent Andrew Wylie in an interview with the Spanish newspaper “El País”. “His wounds are deep. He lost his 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 by the stab wounds. And he suffered 15 more. back and chest injuries. He suffered a brutal attack, “said Wylie, considered the world‘s most influential literary agent, interviewed on the sidelines of the Frankfurt International Book Fair. . Andrew Wylie refused to reveal whether the author of “The Satanic Verses” is still in the hospital: “I can’t give any information on where he is. He’ll survive. That’s the most important thing.” Salman Rushdie was stabbed on August 12, 2022 as he was onstage giving a speech on artistic freedom at the Chautauqua Institution, in upstate New York. The writer was taken to the hospital by helicopter and was initially given artificial respiration. Police identified the perpetrator of the attack as a 24-year-old man named Hadi Matar. At first nothing was known about the motive for the attack. According to information from the NBC television station, the man was born in California and, according to police sources, showed “sympathy for Shiite extremism” on social media. Matar pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court on August 18, claiming that he attempted to kill the writer because he offended Islam. Becoming famous all over the world after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses” in 1989, the then Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the killing of Rushdie because he was guilty of blasphemy against Muhammad and the Koran. Later, a bounty of over three million dollars was placed on his head. Rushdie was placed under the protection of the British police and hid under a false name for over a decade. In the early 2000s, having regained freedom of movement, he had moved to New York. In the past, Wylie and Rushdie had often talked about the possibility of such an attack. “The greatest danger that Salman ran after so many years from the imposition of the fatwa is that a random person could appear out of nowhere and attack him – said the literary agent – There is no way to defend against this, because it is totally unexpected and illogical. It was like the murder of John Lennon. “