Writer Salman Rushdie he regained consciousness, pulled away from the mechanical support and is now able to speak.

The 75-year-old author was stabbed while speaking at an event in New York State and was hospitalized in critical condition.

His agent confirmed the news to the American media.

@SalmanRushdie turn off the ventilator and talk! Constant prayers from everyone @chq

—Michael Hill, ed. (@MichaelHillChK) August 14, 2022

The perpetrator of the attack on him Salman Rushdiea young Lebanese American, appeared before a New York state judge, before whom he stated:innocenton charges of “attempted murder” of the author, who is still in the hospital in a serious condition, but was able to say a few words yesterday, Saturday, in the evening.

Salman Rushdie receiving death threats 1989 which Iran released in connection with religious decree (fatfa) one year after the publication of the author’s book “Satanic lyrics”Yesterday, Friday, he was stabbed ten times in an attack that sparked outrage in the West but was welcomed by extremists in Iran and Pakistan.

During a due process hearing in her court Chotokua, Hadi Matar, The 24-year-old, who is being prosecuted for “attempted murder and assault,” showed up wearing a black and white striped convict’s uniform, handcuffed and masked, and didn’t say a word, according to the New York Times and local press photos. .

Deliberate attack

Prosecutors believe that the attack on the cultural center in Chotokua, where Rushdie was supposed to give a lecture, was deliberate. Intellectual at 75 at least ten stab wounds to the neck and abdomen.

The suspect, who lives in New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty through his attorney and will face trial again on August 19.

Yesterday, Saturday, the authorities and relatives of Salman Rushdie did not make any statements regarding the health of the British writer, who is a naturalized American. On Friday, he was taken to a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, on the shore of the lake that separates the US from Canada, and received respiratory support.

However, his literary agent Andrew Wileywho on Friday night expressed much concern in the New York Times — “Salman is likely to lose an eye, the nerves in his arm are torn, and he has been stabbed in the liver,” simply told the NYT that his client started again last year. night to talk without specifying whether he was off the ventilator.

By the way German magazine stern interviewed Rushdie a few days before the attack: “Since I live in the United States, I no longer have problems (…) My life has become normal again,” the author assures in this interview, which will be published on August 18, stating that he is “optimistic” despite “daily death threats”.

Iran’s fatfa never came, and many translators of Rushdie’s books were injured in the attacks and even killed, such as the Japanese Hiroshi Igarashi who was stabbed to death in 1991.

In the US, Amazon spoke about the increase in orders for “The Satanic Verses” and a bookstore in New York Strand bookstore he told AFP that “people come to see what he wrote and see what we have” in stock.

The attack was welcomed in Iran and Pakistan

in southern Lebanon, Ali Qasem Tahfa, the head of the village of Yarun, told AFP that Hadi Matar is of “Lebanese origin”. The young man was “born and raised in the United States. His mother and father are from Jarun,” he assured, without commenting on the attack.

But in Iran, an ultra-conservative newspaper Kaihan congratulated the perpetrator: “Well done to this courageous and conscientious man who attacked the renegade and villain Salman Rushdie,” the newspaper wrote. “Let us kiss the hand of the one who cut the throat of the enemy with the knife of God.”

At Tehran’s book market, Mehrab Bigdeli, a Shia cleric, said he was “very pleased with the news. Whoever the perpetrator is, I kiss his hand (…) May the curse of God be on Salman Rushdie.”

In neighboring Pakistan, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Lambaik Party, known for its violence against what it calls anti-Muslim blasphemy, also said Salman Rushdie “deserved to be killed.”