At a gathering in New York, writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed while standing on stage in front of a large audience.
After the Satanic Verses author was allegedly repeatedly stabbed before the crowded gathering was evacuated, shocked witnesses described the incident as a “very horrific event.”
After the 1988 release of his contentious book, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Mr. Rushdie, ordering the author’s execution. The attacker was stopped right away. On social media, others commented that Rushdie appeared to have been stabbed in the attack and was bleeding.
Watch: Salman Rushdie On Stage Stabbed Video
Before giving his speech on Friday at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, Salman Rushdie reportedly came under attack. According to the Associated Press, the renowned novelist was attacked while on stage and received rapid medical attention.
Rushdie appears to be being placed into an ambulance, and a man seems to be in police custody in pictures taken at the site and shared on Twitter by another user.
According to the AP, Rushdie fell to the ground or was carried to a hospital. When Insider contacted Chautauqua Institution, they declined to respond. Additionally, it was impossible to approach local officials for comment immediately.
The assault was seen by Rabbi Charles Savenor, executive director of Civic Spirit. After being introduced on stage to cheers, he stated as Rushdie was attacked and sat on a chair. Rushdie is being put aboard a Medevac chopper in a video uploaded by another Twitter user.
Death threats were made against Rushdie due to his controversial prior book “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie’s murder was demanded in a fatwa that Iranian president Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued in 1989.
Salman Rushdie Faced Years Of Death Threats
Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born novelist whose work combines magical realism and historical fiction and is primarily concerned with the connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western cultures. Because many of his works are set in India, he frequently received death threats.
Midnight’s Children, his second book, was released in 1981 and won the Booker Prize. On the prize’s 25th and 40th anniversaries, it was deemed “the best novel of all winners.”
The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, sparked outrage among Muslims. He received death threats, including one from a fatwa published in 1989 by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini demanding his murder.
Rushdie was chosen as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1983. In 1999, the French government named him Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts and Lettres. [3] He received a knighthood in 2007 for his contributions to literature. He was twelfth on The Times’ 2008 list of the top 50 British authors since 1945.
More On Salman Rushdie Family
During the British Raj, on June 19, 1947, Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born into a Muslim Indian Kashmiri family in Bombay. He is the child of Cambridge-educated lawyer and businessman Anis Ahmed Rushdie and teacher Negin Bhatt.
Rushdie has had four marriages. From 1976 to 1987, he was wed to Clarissa Luard[13], with whom he had a son named Zafar (born 1979). [14] Midway through the 1980s, he dumped her in favor of Australian author Robyn Davidson, whom their familiar friend Bruce Chatwin had introduced to him.
The American author Marianne Wiggins served as his second wife; they wed in 1988 and divorced in 1993. Milan was born to his third wife, Elizabeth West, who was his third marriage from 1997 to 2004. He wed Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-American actor, model, and the host of the reality series Top Chef, in 2004. The union disintegrated on July 2, 2007.
After discovering that the birth certificate he had submitted had been altered to make him appear younger than he was, Anis Ahmed Rushdie was fired from the Indian Civil Services (ICS). Three sisters exist for Rushdie. In his 2012 autobiography, he stated that his father took the name Rushdie in honor of Averroes.