Salman Rushdie, author of 'Satanic Verses' and target for more than 30 years of a fatwa from Iran, was placed on a ventilator after being stabbed in the neck and abdomen in New York State on Friday by a man who was arrested.
"The news is not good," the British writer's agent, Andrew Wylie, told the New York Times on Friday evening.
“Salman will probably lose an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed and he was stabbed in the liver,” detailed Mr. Wylie, adding that Mr. Rushdie, 75, had been placed on an artificial respirator.
Urgently operated
Immediately after his attack, on the stage of an amphitheater at a cultural center in Chautauqua, in upstate New York, Salman Rushdie was transported by helicopter to the nearest hospital where he was operated on urgently, New York State Police Major Eugene Staniszewski told reporters.
The writer's attacker, a young man of 24, was quickly arrested.
We still do not know his motivations and therefore the existence of a link with the call for murder of which Rushdie was the subject.
Nevertheless, Salman Rushdie is a symbol and the news of his attack aroused great emotion and countless indignant reactions.
