CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after the leadership of Iran called for his death following the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” But in recent years, declaring “Oh, I have to live my life,” he re-entered society, regularly appearing in public around New York City without evident security.
On Friday morning, any sense that threats to his life were a thing of the past was dispelled when an attacker rushed the stage of Chautauqua Institution here in Western New York, where Mr. Rushdie was scheduled to give a talk about the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers. The assailant stabbed Mr. Rushdie, 75, in the abdomen and the neck, the police and witnesses said, straining to continue the attack even as several people held him back.
Mr. Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital in Erie, Pa., where he was in surgery for several hours on Friday afternoon. Mr. Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, said Friday evening that Mr. Rushdie was on a ventilator and could not speak.
“The news is not good,” Mr. Wylie said in an email. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”
Major Eugene J. Staniszewski of the New York State Police identified the suspect in the attack as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man who was arrested at the scene, but said at a news conference late Friday afternoon that there was no indication yet of a motive.
He said that the police were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local sheriff’s office and that investigators were in the process of obtaining search warrants for a backpack and electronic devices that were found at the institution.
The attack stunned onlookers, who had gathered in the 4,000-seat amphitheater at the Chautauqua Institution, a summertime destination for literary and arts programming.
“It took like five men to pull him away and he was still stabbing,” said Linda Abrams, who attended the lecture in the front row. “He was just furious, furious. Like intensely strong and just fast.”
Others described blood running down Mr. Rushdie’s cheek and pooling on the floor. A physician in attendance, Rita Landman, said that Mr. Rushdie appeared to have multiple stab wounds, including one on the right side of his neck, but that people surrounding him were saying, “he has a pulse, he has a pulse.”
Ralph Henry Reese, 73, who was onstage with Mr. Rushdie to moderate the discussion, suffered an injury to his face during the attack and was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon, the police said.
The brazen attack on Mr. Rushdie shook the literary world. Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, which promotes free expression, said in a statement that “we can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”
After he was released from the hospital, Mr. Reese said in a statement that Mr. Rushdie was “one of the great authors of our time and one of the great defenders of freedom of speech and freedom of creative expression.”
“We revere him and our paramount concern is for his life,” said Mr. Reese. “The fact that this attack could occur in the United States is indicative of the threats to writers from many governments and from many individuals and organizations.”
Mr. Rushdie had effectively been living under a death sentence since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which fictionalized parts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad with depictions that many Muslims found offensive and some considered blasphemous.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, issued a religious edict known as a fatwa on Feb. 14, 1989, ordering Muslims to kill Mr. Rushdie. A price was put on his head of several…
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