A 24-year-old storms the stage and stabs the world-famous author. As Salman Rushdie struggles with his injuries in the hospital, the search for a motive continues.
Iconic writer Salman Rushdie was attacked and seriously injured at a reading in Chautauqua, western New York. A man “rushed onto the stage” in the venue and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer, New York City police said. The 75-year-old was stabbed at least once in the neck and stomach.
The writer will continue to operate at a local hospital, it said. According to his manager, he was put on a ventilator, unable to speak and will likely lose an eye, wrote Andrew Wylie, according to the New York Times. Nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was damaged. “The news is not good.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in the city of Buffalo that Rushdie is getting the help he needs at the hospital. “It was a state cop who stood up and saved his (Rushdie’s) life, protected him,” she said, thanking the aide. Rushdie had previously been taken to a nearby hospital by helicopter.
perpetrator was arrested
Police identified the attacker as a 24-year-old American from New Jersey. According to initial findings, he probably acted without accomplices. “At this point we assume he was alone, but we are trying to make sure he was,” a police spokesman said. A backpack was secured at the crime scene. A number of search warrants are also sought.
The perpetrator was arrested in the hall after the attack on Friday. The “New York Times” quoted a witness: “There was only one attacker. He was dressed in black. He had on loose black clothing. He ran towards him at lightning speed.” The interviewer, who was also attacked, has a head injury, police said.
Decades-old fatwa
It was initially unclear whether the attack was related to the decades-old fatwa. Because of Rushdie’s work “The Satanic Verses” (“Satanic Verses”) from 1988, the Iranian revolutionary leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, published an Islamic legal opinion that called for the author to be killed. Some Muslims felt their religious sensibilities were offended by the work. At the time, Khomeini not only called for the killing of Rushdie, but also for everyone involved in distributing the book. A Japanese translator was later actually killed. Rushdie had to go into hiding and was given police protection.
According to information from his publisher last year, the fatwa no longer had any meaning for Rushdie. He is no longer restricted in his freedom of movement and no longer needs bodyguards. However, the years of hiding did not leave him untouched. He processed this time in the 2012 autobiography “Joseph Anton”, named after his alias.
A few days ago, Rushdie told Stern magazine that he felt safe in the United States. “It was a long time ago,” Rushdie said in an interview with correspondent Raphael Geiger at the end of July when asked if he still feared for his life. “It was serious for a few years,” Rushdie continued. “But since I’ve been living in America, I haven’t had any more problems.” However, the author also warned about the political climate and possible violence in the USA: The bad thing is “that death threats have become commonplace”.
horror at the act
The act sparked global outrage. “In no case is violence a response to words spoken or written by others in the exercise of their freedom of thought and expression,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Guterres wishes Rushdie a speedy recovery.
US Senator and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on Twitter that the act was an “attack on freedom of speech and thought. French President Emmanuel Macron wrote that Rushdie was met with “hatred and barbarism”.
Britain’s outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was appalled that Rushdie “was stabbed in the exercise of a right that we should always defend”.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) described the attack as an attack on the freedom of literature and freedom of thought. Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) was shocked and wished Rushdie a speedy recovery. Green co-chairman Omid Nouripour wrote of the worst “fruit of a hatred that has been fomented and funded by the Iranian regime for decades.” Writer Günter Wallraff, who hid Rushdie in his home in Cologne-Ehrenfeld in 1993, said the news was “of course a blow to me”.
truth in jeopardy
Rushie was born in the year of Indian independence in 1947 in the metropolis of Mumbai (then Bombay). He later studied history at King’s College, Cambridge. He had his breakthrough as an author with the book “Midnight’s Children” (“Midnight’s Children”), which was awarded the prestigious Booker Prize in 1981. In it he tells the story of India’s detachment from the British Empire based on the life stories of protagonists who are born at the precise moment of independence and are endowed with supernatural abilities.
In all, Rushdie has published more than two dozen fiction, non-fiction, and other writings. Rushdie’s style is referred to as Magic Realism, in which realistic events are interwoven with fantastic events. Nevertheless, he is absolutely committed to the truth.
He sees this increasingly in danger, which is also the focus of his most recent publication of essays, which came out in Germany under the title “Languages of Truth”. The writer, who has lived in New York for many years, braces himself against Trumpists and corona deniers. “Truth is a struggle, there’s no question. And maybe never more than now,” he said in an interview with US broadcaster PBS last year.