Author Salman Rushdie attacked on stage

Author Salman Rushdie, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked Friday as he was about to give a lecture in New York.

Eye witnesses saw a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.

Rushdie’s condition was not immediately known.

Rushdie’s book ‘The Satanic Verses’ has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims consider it to be blasphemous. A year later, Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued an edict, calling for Rushdie’s death and a bounty of over $3 million had also been offered for anyone who kills the author.

Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment lingered. In 2012, Rushdie published a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” about the fatwa.

Rushdie was a special guest of the 2020 Malta Book Festival and participated in a literary conversation with former prime minister Alfred Sant.

Rushdie has penned a handful of classic novels, influenced a generation of writers, and received a Queen’s Knighthood for his “services to literature, standing as both pop culture icon and one of the most thought-provoking proponents for free speech today”. 

Rushdie was a Booker Prize winner.