Author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed approximately 10 times on Friday, has been taken off a ventilator and is recovering, his agent said Sunday.
“The road to recovery has begun,” Andrew Wylie, the agent, said in a text message. “It will be long; the injuries are serious, but his condition is going in the right direction.”
Mr. Rushdie, who had spent decades under Iran’s ban, was attacked on stage minutes before he was to give a talk at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted second-degree murder and assault with a weapon.
In court on Saturday, the prosecution said the attack on the perpetrator was premeditated and targeted. Mr. Matar traveled by bus to the intellectual retreat and bought a pass that allowed him to attend the talk that Mr. Rushdie was due to testify on Friday morning, according to prosecutors.
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
Card 1 of 5
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
“Midnight’s Children” (1981). Salman Rushdie’s second novel, about coming of age in modern India, won the Booker Prize and became an international success. The story is told through the life of Saleem Sinai, born at the very moment of India’s independence.
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
“The Satanic Verses” (1988). With its satirical depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, Mr. Rushdie, ignited a furor that resonated worldwide. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, found the book blasphemous and issued a fatwa, or religious edict, urging Muslims to kill the author. Mr Rushdie subsequently went into hiding for years.
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
“The last sigh of the Moor” (1995). The next novel by Mr. Rushdie traced the downward spiral of expectations that India experienced when post-independence hopes for democracy collapsed during the emergency government declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975.
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
“Fury” (2001). Published after Mr. Rushdie moved to New York, this novel follows a doll maker named Malik who has recently arrived in the city after leaving his wife and son in London. Although Rushdie “inhabits his novels in all manner of guises and transformations, he has never been so literally present as in this,” wrote a Times critic.
Salman Rushdie’s most influential work
“Joseph Anton” (2012). These memoirs convey the experiences of Mr. Rushdie after the fatwa was issued. The book is named after the alias of Mr. Rushdie while in hiding, an amalgamation of the names of favorite authors: Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov. The book also talks about the childhood of Mr. Rushdie (and in particular, his alcoholic father), their marriages and much more.
Nathaniel Barone, a public defender, entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Mr. Matar was held without bail, and his next court appearance is scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m.
Mr. Rushdie had been put on a ventilator the evening he was attacked, hours after undergoing surgery at a hospital in Erie, Penn., Mr. Wylie then said that Mr. Rushdie could lose an eye, his liver had been damaged and his nerves. his arm was cut.
On Sunday, Mr Rushdie’s son, Zafar Rushdie, said his father remained in a critical condition and was receiving extensive treatment. He said the author was able to say a few words.
“Although his life-changing injuries are serious, his usual combative and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” Zafar Rushdie said in a statement. “We are so grateful to all the bystanders who bravely jumped to his defense and administered first aid, along with the police and medics who treated him and for the outpouring of love and support from all around Of the world”.
The attack happened in a center dedicated to learning and reflection. A TikTok video that was later taken down showed the chaotic scene moments after the attacker had jumped on stage at the normally placid institution. Mr. Rushdie, who had been living relatively openly after years of a semi-clandestine existence, had just taken his seat to give a talk when a man attacked him.
Immediately, a crowd of people rushed to where the author was lying on the stage to offer help. All over the amphitheater you could see the stunned audience. As some shouted, others stood up and slowly made their way to the stage. People began to congregate in the corridors. One person could be heard screaming “Oh my God” repeatedly.
Security at the Chautauqua Institution is minimal. In its main amphitheater, which regularly hosts popular musical acts and famous speakers and where Mr. Rushdie, there are no bag checks or metal detectors.
Little is known about Mr. Matar, the man accused of the attack. At a house listed as his residence in Fairview, NJ, a car was in the driveway, but shadows were drawn and no one answered the door Sunday.
Many of Mr. Matar’s neighbors said they did not know him or his family, although some neighbors, when shown a photograph, said they recognized him as someone walking around the neighborhood with his head down, never making eye contact.
In Lebanon, the mayor of Yaroun, a town on the southern border with Israel, said Mr. Matar’s father lives there and that authorities had tried to reach him without success. The father lives in a stone house in the center of the village and tends to herds of goats and sheep, said the mayor, Ali Tehfe.
“He refuses to see anyone or even open the door for us,” said Mr. Tehfe in a telephone interview, referring to the father of Mr. To kill.
Mr Rushdie had been living under the threat of an assassination attempt since 1989, about six months after his novel The Satanic Verses was published. The book fictionalized parts of the Prophet Muhammad’s life with depictions that offended some Muslims who believed the novel was blasphemous. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who ruled Iran after its 1979 revolution, issued an edict known as a fatwa on February 14, 1989. He ordered Muslims to kill Mr. Rushdie.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut and Olivia Bensimon from Fairview, NJ