Update, October 23: In an interview with Spain’s El PaÃs, Salman Rushdie’s agent explained the extent of his injuries, months after being attacked. “The were were profound, but he’s lost the sight of one eye,†said Andrew Wylie. “He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso. So, it was a brutal attack.†But Wylie wanted to emphasize what matters most is that Rushie is going to live.
Original story follows.
Salman Rushdie is off a ventilator and “on the road to recovery,†according to his agent. The author was attacked at a lecture in upstate New York on August 12, when he was stabbed and suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in his arm and eye. “Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact,†his son, Zafar Rushdie, said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. Rushdie is still likely to lose the injured eye.
The man arrested for the attack, Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault choices on Saturday. Chautauqua County district attorney Jason Schmidt successfully argued for remand without bail, citing the fatwa against Rushdie as a possible motive for the attack. Investigators are still determining whether the command of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for Rushdie’s death, over his book The Satanic Verses, played a role in the stabbing Friday.