Author Salman Rushdie attacked on lecture stage in New York

CHAUTAUQUA: Salman Rushdie, the author whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and attacked Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.

Later, New York Police released a statement saying that Rushdie was stabbed in the neck.
“A male suspect ran up onto stage at a speaking event & attacked Salman Rushdie & an interviewer at 11 am (local time), today in Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua. Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to his neck & was transported by helicopter to a hospital,” the police said.
The police said that Rushdie’s condition is not yet known.
“The interviewer suffered a minor head injury. A State Trooper assigned to the event immediately took the suspect into custody. Further details shall follow,” it said.

The author, now 75, was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel “Midnight’s Children” in 1981, which won international praise and Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.
But 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.
The novel was considered by some Muslims as disrespectful of the Prophet Muhammed.
Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and himself is an atheist, was forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head — which remains today.
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.
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 Mohammed that drew furious reactions from Muslims worldwide.
Threats and boycotts continue against literary events that Rushdie attends, and his knighthood in 2007 sparked protests in Iran and Pakistan, where a government minister said the honour justified suicide bombings.
The fatwa failed to stifle Rushdie’s writing, however, and inspired his memoir “Joseph Anton”, named after his alias while in hiding and written in the third person.
“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.

Salman Rushdie’s exclusive interview with TOI in 2021:

Watch Author Salman Rushdie attacked on lecture stage in New York