Shatowka, New York — Salman Rushdie went into hiding for years after the Iranian leader demanded his death after the publication of his novel Satanic Verse. But in recent years, declaring, “Oh, I have to live my life,” he re-entered society, regularly appearing in public around New York City without any apparent safety.
Any sense that the threat to his life was a thing of the past was dispelled Friday morning when the stage at the Chautauqua Institute here in western New York was flooded with attackers. A safe haven for exiled writers. Police and witnesses said the attacker stabbed Rushdie, 75, in the abdomen and neck.
Rushdie was flown by helicopter to a hospital near Erie, Pennsylvania, where he underwent surgery for several hours Friday afternoon. Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wiley, said Friday evening that Rushdie was on a ventilator and unable to speak.
“The news is not good,” Wiley said in an email. “Salman is likely to lose one of his eyes. A nerve in his arm has been severed. His liver has been damaged by a stab wound.”
New York State Police Major Eugene J. Staniszewski identified the suspect in the attack as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man who was arrested at the scene, at a news conference late Friday afternoon. , yet a sign of motivation.
He said police are working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local sheriff’s office, and investigators are in the process of obtaining search warrants for backpacks and electronic devices found at the agency.
The attack stunned onlookers in the 4,000-seat amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institute, a destination for summer literature and arts programs.
“It took five men to pull him away, and he was still stabbing,” said Linda Abrams, who attended the lecture from the front row. , just like fast.”
Others described blood running down Mr. Rushdie’s cheeks and pooling on the floor. Rushdie appeared to have multiple puncture wounds, including on the right side of his neck, but people around him said, “He has a pulse, he has a pulse,” said his doctor, Rita Landman. said.
Ralph Henry Reese, 73, who hosted the stage alongside Mr Rushdie, suffered facial injuries during the attack and was released from hospital on Friday afternoon, police said.
The brazen attack on Mr. Rushdie shook the literary world. Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of her PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression, said in a statement, “I cannot think of an incident comparable to a public attack on a literary writer on American soil. I can’t,” he said.
After being released from hospital, Reese said in a statement that Rushdie was “one of the great writers of our time and one of the great advocates of free speech and creative expression.” rice field.
“We respect him and our number one concern is his life,” Reese said. “The fact that this attack could occur in the United States shows that many governments and many individuals and organizations pose a threat to writers.”
Since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which fictionalizes parts of the Prophet Muhammad’s life in depictions that many Muslims find offensive and blasphemous, Mr. Rushdie has I was effectively living under a death sentence. .
Iran’s supreme leader after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a religious edict known as a fatwa on February 14, 1989, ordering Muslims to kill Mr. Rushdie. A price of millions of dollars was paid for his head. Living in London at the time, Mr. Rushdie went into hiding and spent most of the next ten years in a fortified hideout under the protection of British police. did.
At about 10:47 a.m. Friday morning, Rushdie had just sat on stage with discussion moderator Reese, co-founder of the Pittsburgh nonprofit City of Asylum. Police and several witnesses said he rushed to the stage and attacked Rushdie. The audience gasped and stood up.
At first, some people thought it might be a stunt, said Mary Newsom, who attended the talk. “Then it became clear that she was clearly not a stunt,” she said.
According to several witnesses, the attackers ran across the stage and approached Mr. Rushdie from behind and were able to reach Mr. Rushdie easily. Chuck Koch, an Ohio native who owns a house in Chautauqua, sat in the second row and ran onto the stage to subdue the attacker. Coke said several people worked to separate the attackers from Rushdie and were able to do so before uniformed officers arrived and handcuffed the attackers.
As the attacker was being restrained, another attendee, Bruce Johnson, saw the knife fall to the floor.
Chautauqua president Michael Hill said at a press conference Friday afternoon that Matar had a pass to access the facility’s grounds like a regular patron.
The attack was condemned by literary scholars and public officials. “We are extremely shocked and horrified to hear of the attack,” Marcus Dole, chief executive of Rushdie’s publisher, Penguin Random House, said in a statement. Stated.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a twitter post I was appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed while exercising a right we must not stop defending.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on Twitter:
Even before the fatwa, many countries, including Bangladesh, Sudan, Sri Lanka and India, where Mr Rushdie is from, had banned “satanic poetry”. He had been banned from the country for over ten years.
After the fatwa, a half-baked apology from Mr Rushdie, later regretted, was rejected by Iran.
A riot in Mumbai in February 1989 killed 12 people, and another riot in Islamabad killed another six. Books were burned and bookstores were raided. People associated with the book were also targeted.
In July 1991, Jin Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, was stabbed to death and Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was seriously injured. was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.
This fatwa remained in the hands of the Iranian government for nearly a decade after Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, until 1998, when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who was considered relatively liberal, said Iran no longer supported killings. was maintained by However, the fatwa remains in force and reportedly boasted about $3.3 million in rewards from Iranian religious foundations as of 2012.
In a 1995 interview with The Sunday Times, shortly before Mr. Rushdie’s first scheduled public appearance since Fatwa — a panel in London where he discussed his new novel The Moor’s Last Sigh — author The conflagration over the “Devil’s Verse”.
“Writing this was a very important step for me,” he said in that interview. No. Then I realized that it was absurd to let this unpleasant business get in the way of what I did best. And now, at least, that’s how I feel.”
Since then, Rushdie has published eight novels and a memoir on fatwas, Joseph Anton, in 2012. The title comes from the pseudonyms he used while in hiding, taken from the names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.
In recent years, Mr. Rushdie has enjoyed a more public life in New York City. In 2019, he spoke at a private Manhattan club to promote his novel “Quicotte.”Security at the event was relaxed, and Mr. Rushdie was free to mingle with guests, then enjoy dinner with club members. took.
Iran has yet to officially comment on the attack on the author.
But government supporters took to social media to praise the stabbing of Mr Rushdie, saying the Ayatollah’s fatwa had finally come true. Some wanted him dead. Some warn that a similar fate awaits other enemies of the Islamic Republic.
The widely shared words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dating back several years, said that the fatwa against Mr Rushdie was “fired like a bullet that does not rest until it hits its target”.
Ayad Akhtar, a friend of Mr. Rushdie and author and president of PEN America, who sees “The Satanic Verse” as an “essential moment” in modern literary history, said he did not want Mr. Rushdie to bring in security details. Said he hadn’t seen it. , at a theater, at a dinner, or at a public event. Mr. Rushdie seemed perfectly comfortable in this world, he said.
Jay Root Reported from Chautauqua, New York. David Geres From Putnam Valley, New York Elizabeth A. Harris When Julia Jacobs Originally from New York City.Additional reports were contributed by Stephen Erlanger, Farnaz Fasihi, Jonah E. Bromwich When Edmund Lee.
