THE stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie on Friday has triggered an outpouring of support, as the author remains in a critical condition in hospital.
The 75-year-old Indian-born British writer has been put on a ventilator, is unable to speak and may lose an eye after he was attacked on stage in New York state, according to reports.
Authors at Edinburgh Book Festival were among those offering their support, with organisers inviting guests to begin their sessions by reading a sentence from one of Rushdie’s books in a show of solidarity.
New York state police named the suspected attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, and yesterday he was charged with attempted murder and assault,
A statement from prosecutors said he had been remanded without bail.
Rushdie, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, some 65 miles southwest of the city of Buffalo, when the incident occurred.
He was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, according to police officials, before he was taken to hospital.
Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims view it as blasphemous and its publication prompted Iran’s then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for the writer’s death.
There has been speculation over whether this is linked to Friday’s attack.
The author lived in hiding for years in London under a British government protection programme after the fatwa was issued.
He returned to public life gradually after the Iranian government withdrew its support for the death sentence in 1998.
Markus Dohle, chief executive of Rushdie’s publisher Penguin Random House, said: “We condemn this violent public assault, and our thoughts are with Salman and his family at this distressing time.”
Meanwhile, JK Rowling has said she is working with the police after receiving a potential threat from a Twitter user following her reaction tweet to Rushdie’s attack in New York.
The Harry Potter author shared screenshots to Twitter of a message from a user who had written “don’t worry you are next” in response to her tweeting that she felt “very sick” after hearing the news and hoped the novelist would “be OK”.
