Salman Rushdie misplaced sight in a single eye following assault, agent says By Reuters

(Reuters) – Salman Rushdie misplaced sight in a single eye and the usage of one hand following an assault on stage at a literary occasion in western New York in August, his agent stated.

Andrew Wylie, who represents literary giants similar to Saul Bellow and Roberto Bolano, described the extent of the accidents Rushdie suffered within the “brutal” assault in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Wylie described the writer’s wounds as “profound,” and famous the lack of sight of 1 eye. “He had three severe wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated as a result of the nerves in his arm have been reduce. And he has about 15 extra wounds in his chest and torso.”

The agent declined to say whether or not “The Satanic Verses” writer, 75, was nonetheless in hospital greater than two months after police stated a 24-year-old New Jersey man stabbed the author within the neck and torso simply earlier than Rushdie was to provide a lecture at Chautauqua Establishment, a retreat about 12 miles (19 km) from Lake Erie.

The novelist was rushed to the hospital after sustaining extreme accidents within the assault, together with nerve injury in his arm, wounds to his liver, and the possible lack of a watch, Wylie stated on the time.

The assault got here 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme chief, issued a fatwa, or spiritual edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a couple of months after “The Satanic Verses” was revealed. Some Muslims noticed passages within the novel in regards to the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri household, has lived with a bounty on his head, and spent 9 years in hiding beneath British police safety.

Whereas Iran’s pro-reform authorities of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa within the late Nineties, the multimillion-dollar bounty hanging over Rushdie’s head saved rising and the fatwa was by no means lifted.

Khomeini’s successor, Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for saying the fatwa towards Rushdie was “irrevocable.”

The person accused of attacking the novelist has pleaded not responsible to second-degree tried homicide and assault prices. He’s being held with out bail in a western New York jail.