The author Salman Rushdie has been stabbed in New York.
The 75-year-old was about to deliver a speech at the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, Buffalo, when he was attacked on stage, according to witnesses.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced, the outlet reported.
The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained. Rushdie’s condition is not immediately known.
“Just witnessed the horrific assassination attempt on #SalmanRushdie’s life. He was stabbed multiple times before attacker was subdued by security,” author Carl Levan tweeted shortly after the stabbing. “Some intrepid members of the audience went on stage. What courage will be expected of us next to defend even the smallest freedoms?”
The Indian-born novelist previously received death threats for his writing, particularly for his book the Satanic Verses in 1988.
Pakistan banned the book after uproar and he was issued a fatwa – a death sentence – by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.
Khomeini’s threat forced Rushdie into hiding for the best part of a decade and the writer claimed to receive a “Valentine’s card” from Iran each year reminding him that they wanted him dead.
Rushdie won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his second novel, Midnight’s Children.
He has lived in the US since 2000, and he was named a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University in 2015.
He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, for Midnight’s Children, in 1983 for Shame, in 1988 for The Satanic Verses, in 1995 for The Moor’s Last Sign, and in 2019 for Quichotte.
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