Writer Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and movement in one hand after the attack he suffered on August 12. The British author of The Satanic Verses was stabbed in Chautauqua, New York, shortly before he was about to give a lecture. An attack that was recorded and published on social networks:
The aftermath of the brutal attack, allegedly carried out by Iranian Revolutionary Guard sympathizer, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, did not leave a good prognosis for Rushdie. These statements were ratified last week by his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, to El País. In the interview, Wylie said that "his wounds were profound, but he’s also lost the sight of one eye... He received three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were severed."
An aggression that, as the literary agent told the Spanish newspaper, was ferocious: "he has about 15 more wounds to his chest and torso. It was a brutal attack". However, it is not something that is alien to him. In fact, during his interview with El País, he confirmed that he had already spoken to Rushdie about the possibility of the writer suffering an attack during one of his lectures:
I think the attack was probably something that Salman and I have discussed in the past, which was that the principal danger that he faced so many years after the fatwa was imposed is from a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking him. So, you can’t protect against that because it’s totally unexpected and illogical. It was like John Lennon’s murder.
An attack from which the British writer is recovering, although Wylie does not want to confirm his current whereabouts: "I can’t give any information about his whereabouts. He’s going to live…That’s the most important thing."
The Nobel Prize for Literature eludes him
After the assault he suffered last August, Salman Rushdie was one of the most talked about candidates to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022. However, the award remains elusive and, this year, goes to France's Annie Ernaux. Something that does not surprise the British writer who previously in 2017 assured El Mundo that he would never win the coveted prize: "I think the Nobel Prize will never cross my path.... As far as we all know."
He refers to the fear of Islamists. A feeling that, as he stated in that interview, prevents the Academy from awarding him the Nobel Prize: "Yes," he said emphatically, without wishing to discuss the subject any further.
The fact is that Rushdie, 75, is one of the few who dares to speak out on controversial issues. An example of this is in the publication of his book The Satanic Verses. The publication, which Muslims consider offensive, prompted Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 to issue an edict condemning him to death, as recalled by Associated Press.
Implications for the literary community
Threats that provoked the current attack have also had repercussions in the rest of the literary community. Shehan Karunatilaka, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, acknowledged to the BBC that he had "self-censored" a couple of his short stories after the attack on Rushdie last August: "I was in the process of publishing a collection of short stories when this incident happened, and I discovered a couple which I don't think were offensive to any religion. But my wife said, can you not do that? You've got two young kids. This story is not that good. Just leave it out," the Sri Lankan writer revealed.
And, as the author added later, the fear of attack is "something that hangs over all of us if we're writing in South Asia, especially writing about politics or religion" and can result in consequences like those of Salman Rushdie's attack: losing sight in one eye and mobility in one hand.
