Salman Rushdie suffered extensive injuries in an attack earlier Friday and remains on a ventilator and unable to speak, his agent, Andrew Wylie told The New York Times on Friday night.
“The news is not good,” Wylie said via email. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”
Rushdie, 75, remains hospitalized in Pennsylvania, where he was airlifted after the attack.
Rushdie was set to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in Upstate New York when he was stabbed by a man who rushed the stage. The author was scheduled to give a talk about the United States being a safe haven for exiled writers.
Police have detained a suspect, Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey according to multiple reports.
The New York Post, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported that Matar has made social media posts in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard.
“We don’t have any indication of a motive at this time,” Major Eugene J. Staniszewski told reporters, according to the Post.
The Booker Prize–winning author of 1981’s “Midnight’s Children,” Rushdie is best known for his controversial 1988 work “The Satanic Verses,” which was viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
Under the late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian government issued a fatwā in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s death and put a $3 million bounty on his head.
In 1991, two translators of the book were stabbed, one fatally, the The Washington Post reported at the time.
Rushdie went into hiding in the U.K. before slowly reemerging a decade later, saying, “Oh, I have to live my life.” His 2012 memoir, “Joseph Anton,” charted his life with the fatwā.
Today’s Iranian government has distanced itself from Khomeini’s treatment of Rushdie, but resentment and the threat of violence has remained a constant.
