Salman Rushdie is off the ventilator and is talking, the president of Chautauqua Institution, where the Mumbai-born author was stabbed at an event onstage, said. "@SalmanRushdie off ventilator and talking! Continued prayers from all @chq," Chautauqua Institution president Michael Hill said in a tweet on Saturday night.
Rushdie, 75, was on a ventilator after he was stabbed by 24-year-old Hadi Matar onstage at a event on Friday at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Rushdie was in surgery several hours after the attack and his agent Andrew Wylie told The New York Times (NYT) that the author was on a ventilator and could not speak.
"The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye, the nerves in his arm were severed, and his liver was stabbed and damaged," Wylie had said in a statement to NYT.
Matar was charged with attempted murder and assault in the stabbing of Rushdie and he pleaded not guilty. He made his appearance in court, wearing a black-and-white striped jumpsuit and handcuffed.
Rushdie, who faced Islamist death threats for years after writing "The Satanic Verses", was stabbed by Matar on stage while he was being introduced at a literary event of the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York, sending shockwaves across the literary world which condemned the incident as an attack on freedom of expression.
