Stabbed on August 12, 2022 in the United States, the British writer Salman Rushdie suffered serious physical consequences from his attack: he lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand, among other serious consequences. indicated his agent to the Spanish daily El País.
“He lost the sight of one eye… He had three serious injuries to his neck. He is disabled in one hand because the nerves in his arm have been severed. And he has about 15 other chest and torso injuries.“, said Andrew Wylie to El País in an interview published this weekend. “His wounds were very deep (…) It was a brutal attack “but he will live”he added, thus detailing for the first time the state of health of the writer for several weeks, without indicating if he is still in the hospital.
On a summer day that turned into a nightmare, Salman Rushdie was about to speak at a conference in upstate New York when a man burst onto the stage and stabbed him in the several times, especially in the neck and abdomen. Evacuated by helicopter to a hospital, the author of the satanic verses had to be put on a ventilator briefly before his condition improved.
The main suspect, Hadi Matar, an American of Lebanese origin then aged 24, was arrested immediately after the incident and pleaded not guilty during his trial which opened in mid-August in a court in Mayville, in New York State. The attack shocked the West but was hailed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The writer has been pursued for thirty-three years by a fatwa from the Iranian Supreme Guide condemning him to death. Following his violent attack, another figure in literature had shown his support, before being also targeted by threats: the writer JK Rowling.