Salman Rushdie lost eyesight in one eye after attack: Agent
Salman Rushdie lost sight in an eye and the use of a hand following an onstage attack at a literary event in Western New York in August, his agent said.
Andrew Wylie, who represents literary giants like Saul Bellow and Roberto Bolano, described the extent of the wounds suffered by Rushdie in the “brutal” attack in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
Wylie described the writer’s wounds as “deep,” and noted the loss of sight in one eye. “He had three grave injuries to his neck.” One hand is paralysed because it’s been cut off. And he has 15 more chest and chest injuries.
The officer refused to say whether “The Satanic Verses” author, 75, was still at the hospital more than two months after the police said a 24-year-old man from New Jersey stabbed the writer in the neck and chest just before Rushdie was to give a lecture at Chautauqua Institution, a retreat approximately 12 miles (19 km) from Lake Erie.
The novelist was rushed to hospital after suffering severe injuries during the attack, including nerve damage to his arm liver injuries, and probable loss of an eye, Wylie stated at the time.
The attack took place 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader issued a fatwa, or religious edict calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after “The Satanic Verses” was published. Some Muslims have seen passages in the romance about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as blasphemous.
Rushdie, who was born in India to a Kashmiri Muslim family, lived with a bounty on his head and spent nine years underground under the protection of the British police.