British writer Salman Rushdie has lost the sight in one eye and the use of one hand, among other serious consequences, after being stabbed in the US in August, his literary agent told Spanish daily El Pais, as quoted by AFP and Agerpres.

Salman RushdiePhoto: Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx/AP/Profimedia

“He lost sight in one eye… He had three serious neck injuries. He is disabled with one arm because his nerves are severed. And he has 15 more wounds on his chest and torso,” Andrew Wylie said in an interview with El Pais published this weekend.

“His wounds were very deep. It was a brutal attack,” but “he will live,” he added, describing the writer’s condition for the first time in weeks, without specifying whether Rushdie was still in hospital.

On August 12, Salman Rushdie was preparing to give a speech at a conference in upstate New York (Northeast) when a man ran onto the stage and stabbed him several times, particularly in the neck and stomach.

The author of The Satanic Verses, who was evacuated by helicopter to the hospital, had to be immediately connected to a ventilator until his condition improved.

The main suspect, Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old Lebanese-American, was arrested immediately after the incident and pleaded not guilty in a mid-August trial in Mayville, New York.

The attack shocked the West but was welcomed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan. For 33 years, the writer was under the influence of a fatwa issued by the Supreme Leader of Iran, which condemned him to death.

Read on this topic:

  • VIDEO Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, was stabbed on stage in New York / The writer was operated on for several hours, and his agent says that “the news is bad” / Who is the attacker
  • What is “Fatwa” and how it sentenced Salman Rushdie to solitary confinement
  • What We Need to Know About Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses / What Made Radical Muslims Rage
  • After the first joys after the attack on Salman Rushdie, the Iranian press turns the page: American conspiracy to spread Islamophobia in the world
  • Iran’s first official reaction to the attack on Salman Rushdie: “Only he is to blame. Nobody can blame Tehran”
  • Salman Rushdie attacker claims to be a fan of Ayatollah Khomeini