“The news is not good,” his agent said.
It is likely Salman Rushdie will lose an eye after the author was stabbed on stage in New York on Friday (12 August).
His agent Andrew Wylie gave an update to the New York Times on Friday evening about Rushdie’s condition in which he said “the news is not good” and that the writer was on a ventilator and could not speak.
“Salman will likely lose one eye. The nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” he stated.
New York State Police have said the incident occurred at around 10.45am at an event at the Chautauqua Institution where Rushdie was due to give a speech.
A man ran up onto the stage and attacked the 75-year-old author before staff and guests went onto the podium to assist in holding down the attacker.
Rushdie was later airlifted to hospital for treatment of his injuries.
The other speaker at the event, 73-year-old Ralph Henry Reese, also suffered a minor head injury.
Police idenitified the suspected attacker as 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey and said he has been taken into custody.
Following the release of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie had been the target of death threats from Iran in the 1980s.
The book was banned in the country as it was considered blasphemous by many Muslims and in 1989, the year after its publication, the country’s leader at the time Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death.
Rushdie was born in India before later moving to Britain.
In 1981, he won the Booker Prize, cementing him as one of the most respected writers of his era.
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