By
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Salman Rushdie's agent said the author lost the sight in one eye and one hand was disabled in an attack by a man who climbed onstage at a literary event in New York in August, according to a news article. .
Literary agent Andrew Wylie told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an article published Saturday that Rushdie, 75, suffered three serious injuries to his neck and 15 more to his chest and torso.
[Authors and friends defend and read Salman Rushdie a week after being stabbed in New York]
Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death following the publication of his novel
The Satanic Verses
, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.
For the past two decades, Rushdie has traveled freely.
Salman Rushdie at the 68th National Book Awards in New York on November 15, 2017. Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, remains incarcerated after pleading not guilty to attempted murder and assault in the Aug. 12 attack on Rushdie as he was reporting to the Chautauqua Institution, a rural facility 55 miles (89 miles) southwest of Buffalo that is known for its summer conferences.
After the attack, Rushdie was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital, where he was briefly put on a ventilator to recover from what Wylie told El País was a "brutal attack" that severed the nerves in his arm.
[Doctors take writer Salman Rushdie off his artificial respirator and he is now able to speak, his literary agent confirmed]
Wylie told the newspaper that he could not say whether Rushdie remained in a hospital or discuss his whereabouts.
The charges facing the alleged culprit in the stabbing of writer Salman Rushdie
Aug. 13, 202200:29
"He's going to live... That's what's important," Wylie added.
The attack was along the lines of what Rushie and his agent thought was the "main danger... a random person who came out of nowhere and attacked," Wylie told El País.
"So you can't protect yourself against that because it's totally unexpected and illogical," he said.
[Iran denies being behind the attack on Salman Rushdie and blames the writer directly]
Wylie told the newspaper it was like the case of John Lennon, who was shot dead by Mark David Chapman outside his Manhattan apartment building on December 8, 1980, hours after the singer signed Chapman an autograph. .
In a jailhouse interview with The New York Post, Matar said he disliked Rushdie and praised Khomeini.
Iran has denied involvement in the attack.
