Chautauqua According to police, writer icon Salman Rushdie was attacked and seriously injured by a 24-year-old American. The motive of the arrested man from New Jersey, who probably acted alone, is still unclear, a police spokesman said on Friday. The incident happened at a reading in the town of Chautauqua in western New York State.
After hours of surgery, Rushdie was put on a ventilator on Friday night. “The news is not good,” Andrew Wylie, his literary agent, wrote in an email. “Salman is likely to lose an eye, the nerves in his arm have been severed, and his liver has been punctured and damaged.” The writer is unable to speak. The horror was great worldwide.
Rushdie was sentenced to death more than 30 years ago by fatwa: because of his work “The Satanic Verses” from 1988, the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini published the religious legal document that called for the author to be killed. Some Muslims felt their religious sensibilities were offended by the work.
According to police, the young man stormed the stage at the event, which was attended by hundreds of people, around 11 a.m. local time (5 p.m. CEST) and stabbed Rushdie. “Several event staff and spectators fell on the suspect and took him to the ground,” a spokesman said. A police officer then arrested the 24-year-old. Meanwhile, Rushdie was treated by a doctor from the audience until paramedics arrived and the author was eventually taken to a clinic by helicopter.
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The New York Times quoted a witness as saying: “There was only one attacker. He was dressed in black. He was wearing a loose black garment. A reporter from the US news agency Associated Press reported that the attacker punched or stabbed Rushdie 10 to 15 times. The interviewer, who was also attacked, suffered a head injury, police said. The AP news agency quoted a doctor from the audience as saying that Rushdie’s wounds were “serious but curable”.
There were initially no details about the background to the attack. It was initially unclear whether this was related to the decades-old fatwa. The act took place during a lecture by Rushdie in the so-called Chautauqua Institution, an educational and cultural center. The event was part of a series entitled “More than Shelter” to discuss the United States as a haven for exiled writers and the persecution of artists.
Rushdie had to go into hiding for a long time because of threats
At the time, the Ayatollah’s Islamic legal opinion not only called for the killing of Rushdie, but also of all those who were 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 worked through this period in the 2012 autobiography Joseph Anton, which was 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.” The author also warned about the political climate and possible violence in the USA: The bad thing is that “death threats have become commonplace”.
Shocked reactions worldwide
The act sparked global outrage. 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”. Outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled”. Harry Potter author Joanne K. Rowling and best-selling author Stephen King also expressed their dismay and wrote that they hope Rushdie is doing well.
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-leader Omid Nouripour wrote of the worst “fruit of a hatred that has been fueled 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 for me”.
The American authors’ association PEN America was shocked by the attack on its former president. Rushdie has been attacked for his words for decades, but he has never wavered and never hesitated, Chairwoman Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.
“The truth is a struggle”
Rushddie 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 won 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. His style is called Magical 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 “Language 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 is no question. And maybe never as much as now,” he said in an interview with US broadcaster PBS last year.
More: Salman Rushdie: “Everything is better than Trump”