With his book The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie makes himself the arch-enemy of militant Islamists. The author was under police protection for a long time. Now the 75-year-old is attacked on an open stage at an event in the USA.
Indo-British writer Salman Rushdie has been attacked while giving a lecture in upstate New York. The police spoke of a knife attack and said emergency services had been called to the event venue in the city of Chautauqua. “Rushdie sustained a stab wound to the neck,” police said.
Eyewitnesses reported that a man stormed the stage and began attacking Rushdie and an interviewer. The author then fell to the ground. The attacker was held down by those present. He was later arrested. Rushdie was transported to a local hospital by helicopter. The interviewer who was on stage with Rushdie suffered a minor head injury. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in the city of Buffalo that Rushdie is alive and is getting the help he needs at the hospital. “It was a state cop who stood up and saved his (Rushdie’s) life, protected him,” she said, thanking the aide.
In 1988, Rushdie published The Satanic Verses. Some Muslims felt their religious sensibilities were offended by the work of the 75-year-old. Iran’s revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued an Islamic legal opinion calling for the killing of Rushdie and everyone involved in distributing the book. A Japanese translator was later actually killed. Rushdie had to go into hiding and was given police protection.
According to information from his publisher last year, the ayatollah’s “fatwa” no longer has any meaning for Rushdie. He is no longer restricted in his freedom of movement and no longer needs bodyguards. However, the years of hiding did not leave him untouched. He processed this time in the 2012 autobiography “Joseph Anton”, named after his alias.
Rushdie was born in 1947, the year of Indian independence in the metropolis of Mumbai. He later studied history at King’s College, Cambridge. He had his breakthrough as an author with “Midnight Children”, which was awarded the renowned Booker Prize in 1981. Rushdie has published more than two dozen fiction, non-fiction, and other writings. In 2007 he was knighted by the Queen.
