Author Salman Rushdie stabbed at literary festival, on ventilator

In a shocking incident, author Salman Rushdie was stabbed by an assailant at an event in New York. The writer was attending the Chautauqua summer arts festival and had walked on stage to deliver a lecture. 

According to an online report in the British daily The Guardian, Rushdie was sitting on a chair on the stage while the panelist was introducing him. A man dressed in black rushed to the stage and attacked Rushdie, stabbing him several times. A police officer at the event immediately arrested the man, who has now been identified as being a 24 year-old man from New Jersey, Hadi Matar.

The US newspaper The New York Times has reported Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie commenting on the author’s condition, saying that Rushdie has been put on a ventilator, his liver has been damaged and he may lose an eye. 

Rushdie is perhaps best known for his 1981 Booker Prize-winning novel, Midnight’s Children, which has been adapted into a movie by Deepa Mehta in 2013. His 1998 novel, Satanic Verses courted massive controversy as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa against him, ordering Muslims to kill the author. The novel, which is inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad, was seen as being blasphemous by some groups.

Writers and artists from around the world have expressed their shock and disbelief at the attack against the writer.