Key Points
- British author Salman Rushdie has been repeatedly stabbed as he was about to give a lecture in western New York state.
- The author whose writings have made him the target of Iranian death threats is on a ventilator and could lose an eye.
Salman Rushdie suffered severe, life-changing injuries but his "usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact", his family has said.
The author, 75, has a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye after he was stabbed at a lecture in New York on Friday.
In a statement, his son Zafar said the family was "relieved" he was taken off a ventilator on Saturday.
He said: "Following the attack on Friday, my father remains in critical condition in hospital receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment.
"We are extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words.
"Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact.
"We are so grateful to all the audience members who bravely leapt to his defence and administered first aid along with the police and doctors who have cared for him and for the outpouring of love and support from around the world.
"We ask for continued patience and privacy as the family come together at his bedside to support and help him through this time."
In an update on his condition on Sunday, his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said: "He's off the ventilator, so the road to recovery has begun.
"It will be long, the injuries are severe, but his condition is headed in the right direction."
Hadi Matar, 24, center, arrives for an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, New York on Saturday, 13 August 2022. Source: AAP / AP
The man accused of stabbing him has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called a "pre-planned" crime.
A lawyer for Hadi Matar, 24, entered the plea on his behalf during a formal hearing at a court in western New York.
Matar appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him to be held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in a position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.
Mr Matar was born in California and recently moved to New Jersey, the NBC New York report said, adding that he had a fake driver's license on him. He was arrested at the scene by a state trooper after being wrestled to the ground by audience members.
Witnesses said he did not speak as he attacked the author. Mr Rushdie was stabbed 10 times, prosecutors said during Mr Matar's arraignment, according to the New York Times.
This still image from a video shows a man, at left, being escorted from the stage as people tend to author Salman Rushdie, centre right, at the Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday, 12 August 2022. Source: AAP / AP
The attack occurred at the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts arts programs in a lakeside community 110 kilometres south of Buffalo city.
Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the event, said he saw Matar run onto the stage where Mr Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."
Professor LeVan, a Chautauqua regular, said the suspect "was trying to stab him as many times as possible before he was subdued," adding that he believed the man "was trying to kill" Rushdie.
'Horror and panic'
"There were gasps of horror and panic from the crowd," the professor said. Mr LeVan said witnessing the event had left him "shaken," adding he considered Chautauqua a safe place of creative freedom.
"To know that this happened here, and to see it -- it was horrific," he said. "What I saw today was the essence of intolerance."
Another witness, John Stein, told ABC that the assailant "started stabbing on the right side of the head, of the neck. And there was blood... erupting."
In this still image from a video, author Salman Rushdie is taken on a stretcher to a helicopter for transport to a hospital on Friday, 12 August 2022. Source: AAP / AP
Who is Salman Rushdie?
Mr Rushdie is an internationally acclaimed author who was born in India to non-practising Muslim parents.
He was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel Midnight's Children in 1981, which won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.
Midnight's Children - which runs to more than 600 pages - has been adapted for the stage and silver screen, and his books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Why did he spend a decade in hiding?
His 1988 book The Satanic Verses brought attention beyond his imagination when it sparked a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for his death by Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
A fatwa is a legal ruling in Islamic law, imposed by a religious leader, who decrees contentious points of order in their respective country.
The book was condemned by some Muslims who found the plot around the protagonist - who had striking parallels with the Prophet Muhammad - to be highly offensive and blasphemous.
In the fatwa, Mr Khomeini urged "Muslims of the world rapidly to execute the author and the publishers of the book" so that "no one will any longer dare to offend the sacred values of Islam".
Author Salman Rushdie holds up a copy of his book The Satanic Verses during a 1992 news conference in the US. Source: AP / RON EDMONDS/AP
Conservative media in Iran hailed the attack on Rushdie in New York, with one state-owned paper saying the "neck of the devil" had been "cut by a razor".
Ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan, whose chief is appointed by current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote: "Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York."
He was granted police protection by the government in Britain, where he was at school and where he made his home, following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers.
He spent nearly a decade in hiding, moving houses repeatedly and being unable to tell his children where he lived.
Reemergence and threats
Mr Rushdie only began to emerge from his life on the run in the late 1990s after Iran in 1998 said it would not support his assassination.
Now living in New York, he is an advocate of freedom of speech, notably launching a strong defence of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after its staff were gunned down by Islamists in Paris in 2015.
The magazine had published drawings of Prophet Muhammad that drew furious reactions from Muslims worldwide.
The publication, whose 12 staff members were gunned down in 2015, said that nothing justified the stabbing of Mr Rushdie.
"At the time we are writing these lines we do not know the motives" of the attacker, it said, speculating ironically whether it was spurred by global warming, the decline in purchasing power, or a ban on watering potted plants during the current heatwave," the statement said.
British writer Salman Rushdie at a news conference in Paris in 1995 shows a letter from the Iranian ambassador to Denmark saying Iran would never send anyone to kill Rushdie, effectively lifting the fatwa. Source: AP / JACQUES BRINON/AP
The fatwa failed to stifle Mr Rushdie's writing and inspired his memoir "Joseph Anton," named after his alias while in hiding and written in the third person.
An essential voice
Global leaders voiced anger over the attack and support for Rushdie, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying the author "embodied freedom" and that "his battle is ours, a universal one."
British leader Boris Johnson meanwhile said he was "appalled," sending thoughts to Mr Rushdie's loved ones and praising the author for "exercising a right we should never cease to defend."
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called it a "reprehensible attack," adding that "all of us in the Biden-Harris Administration are praying for his speedy recovery."
Midnight's Children has been adapted for the stage and silver screen, and his books have been translated into more than 40 languages.
Suzanne Nossel, head of the PEN America organisation, said the free speech advocacy group was "reeling from shock and horror."
"Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face," Ms Nossel said in a statement.
"Our thoughts and passions now lie with our dauntless Salman, wishing him a full and speedy recovery. We hope and believe fervently that his essential voice cannot and will not be silenced."
