Writer Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator and is unable to speak, his agent says, as a result of the injuries he sustained when he was attacked on stage.
“Salman will probably lose an eye,” the agent said, according to The New York Times.
The attack took place at a quarter to eleven in the morning local time, when Salman Rushdie was to give a speech at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state.
A man, identified as a 24-year-old from New Jersey, rushed onto the stage and attacked the author at least once in the throat and once in the abdomen or chest. The man is now under arrest for the crime.
British-Indian Rushdie became world famous when his novel “The Satanic Verses” was published in the autumn of 1988. It partly touched on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, which caused an outcry in parts of the Muslim world. Rushdie was threatened with death, threats that have continued ever since.
Watch the eyewitness recount the attack in the player above.