The writer Salman Rushdie, who was attacked in the USA in August, lost an eye.
Politico writes about it.
The authorʼs literary agent Andrew Wiley informed that the author had lost the sight in one eye and the use of an arm. Rushdie suffered three serious wounds to the neck and 15 other wounds to the chest and torso during the attack, he stated.
After the attack, Rushdie was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital, where he was briefly put on a ventilator.
The attack took place on August 12, when Rushdie was giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Education Center in New York. A man got on the stage and started beating the writer with his fists and a knife. The attacker was detained by the police.
In 1988, Salman Rushdieʼs book The Satanic Verses was banned in Iran. Many Muslims consider it blasphemy. In 1989, then-Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a decree calling for Rushdieʼs death. In Iran, a reward of $3.3 million is offered for the murder of the writer.
The Iranian government has long distanced itself from Khomeiniʼs decree, but public sentiment against Rushdie has persisted. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation increased the reward for Rushdieʼs assassination from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
At the time, Rushdie dismissed the threat, saying there was "no evidence" that people were interested in the reward. The writer published the memoir "Joseph Anton", in which he talks about the Iranian decree. The title of the book comes from the pseudonym Rushdie used while in hiding.
- Salman Rushdieʼs novel "Midnightʼs Children" won the Man Booker Prize in 1981, but his name became known around the world only after "The Satanic Verses".