Stabbed in August in the United States, British writer Salman Rushdie has since lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand, among other serious consequences, his agent told the Spanish daily. El Pais.
“He lost sight in one eye… He had three serious neck injuries. He is disabled in one hand because the nerves in his arm have been severed. And he has about 15 other chest and torso injuries,” Andrew Wylie told El Pais 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 state of health of the writer for several weeks, without indicating whether he is still at the hospital. hospital.
On August 12, Salman Rushdie was about to speak at a conference in upstate New York when a man burst onto the stage and stabbed him multiple times, including in the neck and the abdomen.
Evacuated by helicopter to a hospital, the author of the satanic verses had to be put on a ventilator briefly before his condition improved.
The main suspect, Hadi Matar, an American of Lebanese origin then aged 24, was arrested immediately after the incident and pleaded not guilty during his trial which opened in mid-August in a court in Mayville, in the 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 pursued for 33 years by a fatwa from the Iranian Supreme Guide condemning him to death.