“The news is not good”, Salman Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wylie told the New York Times on Friday night. The British writer was stabbed in the neck on Friday in New York State in the United States. He had been the target of a fatwa since 1989 and the publication of his book “Les verses sataniques”. He was going to speak at a literary festival near New York in the United States.
Salman Rushdie, 75, was placed on an artificial respirator. “Salman is likely to lose an eye; the nerves in his arm were severed and he was stabbed in the liver,” detailed Mr. Wylie. Immediately after his attack, on the stage of an amphitheater of a cultural center in Chautauqua, in upstate New York, Salman Rushdie was transported by helicopter to the nearest hospital where he was operated on urgently, New York State Police Major Eugene Staniszewski told reporters.
He was “trying to kill Salman Rushdie”
Shortly before 11 a.m. (3 p.m. GMT) this Friday, “a suspect rushed onto the stage (of the amphitheater) and attacked Salman Rushdie and the interviewer” in “stabbing” the writer “in the neck”, very quickly announced the police, who specified Friday evening that the writer had also been stabbed “in the abdomen”. Conference host Ralph Henry Reese, 73, was “slightly injured in the face”.
Carl LeVan, professor of political science, was in the room, and told AFP on the phone that a man had thrown himself on the stage where Mr. Rushdie was sitting to stab him violently several times. He “was trying to kill Salman Rushdie”said this witness.
L’assailant was immediately arrested and taken into custody, with Officer Staniszewski revealing his name was Hadi Matar, 24, from New Jersey. Police believe he acted alone.
A fatwa since 1989
Salman Rushdie, born on June 19, 1947 in Bombay, two months before India’s independence – brought up by a family of non-practicing Muslim intellectuals, wealthy, progressive and cultured – set part of the Muslim world ablaze with the publication of “Satanic verses”, leading Iranian Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to issue a “fatwa” in 1989 calling for his assassination.
The author had therefore been forced to live in hiding and under police protectione, going from cache to cache. He faces at this time an immense loneliness, increased by the break with his wife, the American novelist Marianne Wiggins, to whom “The verses…” are dedicated. Living discreetly in New York, Salman Rushdie had resumed a more or less normal life while continuing to defend, in his books, satire and irreverence.
The “fatwa” has never been lifted and many translators of his book were injured by attacks, even killed, like the Japanese Hitoshi Igarashi, victim of several stab wounds in 1991.
“Thirty years have passed”however, said the writer in the fall of 2018. “Now everything is fine. I was 41 at the time (of the fatwa), I am 71 now. We live in a world where concerns change very quickly. There are now many other reasons to be afraid, other people to kill…”.
Knighted in 2007 by the Queen of Englandto the great displeasure of Muslim extremists, this master of magical realism, a man of immense culture who calls himself apolitical, has written in English about fifteen novels, stories for young people, short stories and essays.
Macron and Johnson react
“His fight is ours, universal”French President Emmanuel Macron launched on Twitter, claiming to be “today, more than ever, by his side”. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for his part, said “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed while exercising a right we should never stop defending”referring to freedom of expression.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said through his spokesman that he was “horrified” by the attack, adding “that in no way was the violence a response to the words”. “This act of violence is appalling,” said US President Joe Biden’s security adviser, Jake Sullivan. “All members of the Biden-Harris administration are praying for his speedy recovery”he added in a press release.