Salman Rushdie has lost an eye and the mobility of a hand

The British writer Salman Rushdie, stabbed in August in the United States, has lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand, among other serious consequences, as explained by his agent to the newspaper El País.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 October 2022 Sunday 11:30
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Salman Rushdie has lost an eye and the mobility of a hand

The British writer Salman Rushdie, stabbed in August in the United States, has lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand, among other serious consequences, as explained by his agent to the newspaper El País.

"He has asked for sight in one eye... He had three serious injuries to his neck. He is disabled in one hand because they severed the nerves in his arm. And he has 15 other injuries to his chest and torso," Andrew Wylie told El Country in an interview published this weekend.

"His wounds were very deep (...) It was a brutal attack" but "he will live", he added, thus detailing for the first time the writer's state of health for several weeks, without specifying if he is still in the hospital.

On August 12, Salman Rushdie was about to speak at a conference in upstate New York (northeast) when a man burst onto the stage and repeatedly stabbed him, particularly in the neck and abdomen.

Evacuated by helicopter to a hospital, the Satanic Verses author had to be briefly placed on a ventilator before his condition improved.

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

The attack shocked the West but was hailed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The writer has been persecuted for 33 years by a fatwa from the Iranian Supreme Guide that condemns him to death.