After being attacked on stage at a literary event in western New York in August, Salman Rushdie lost the sight in one eye and the use of one hand, according to his agent.Andrew Wylie, a literary agent for luminaries like Saul Bellow and Roberto Bolano, discussed the seriousness of Rushdie’s wounds in an interview.
Wylie called the author’s injuries “deep” and mentioned that one of the author’s eyes had lost its vision. “Three times, he has suffered major injuries to his neck. He only had the use of one hand since the nerves in his arm were severed.
He also has another 15 or so wounds in his torso and chest.”The 75-year-old author of “The Satanic Verses” was allegedly stabbed in the neck and torso by a 24-year-old New Jersey man just before Rushdie was scheduled to deliver a lecture at Chautauqua Institution, a retreat about 12 miles (19 km) from Lake Erie.
The agent declined to comment on whether Rushdie was still hospitalised more than two months later.According to Wylie at the time, the novelist was taken to the hospital right away after the attack left him with serious wounds, including nerve damage in his arm, injury to his liver, and the potential loss of an eye.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran at the time, called on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after “The Satanic Verses” was released in a fatwa, or religious edict, 33 years before to the incident. Some Muslims considered the book’s references to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to be disrespectful.
Rushdie, who spent nine years hiding under the protection of the British police and was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, has lived with a price on his head.The multimillion dollar prize on Rushdie’s head kept rising.
