CNN
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Author Salman Rushdie lost sight in one eye and one of his hands is ‘unfit’ following a stabbing attack in August, according to an interview his agent gave to a Spanish newspaper .
Rushdie, 75, underwent emergency surgery after being stabbed multiple times before his scheduled lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York on August 12.
Staff members and guests then rushed to the scene and restrained the suspect, identified as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, before a state trooper assigned to the event take him into custody, according to New York State Police. .
Matar pleaded not guilty to attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault following the attack.
Talk to El Paísliterary agent Andrew Wylie said: “[His wounds] were deep, but it is [also] lost sight in one eye… He had three serious injuries to his neck. A hand is incapacitated because the nerves in its arm have been severed. And he has about 15 other chest and torso injuries. So it was a brutal attack.
Wylie declined to tell the newspaper whether Rushdie was still hospitalized and did not say when he was last told of Rushdie’s condition, according to an English-language article from the interview. He said the most important thing was that the writer was going to live.
Wylie also told El País that he and Rushdie had raised the possibility of such an attack in the past. “The main danger he faced so many years after the imposition of the fatwa came from a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking [him],” he said. “So you can’t protect yourself against that because it’s totally unexpected and illogical. It was like John Lennon’s murder.
El Pais said the interview was conducted from a hotel suite on Wednesday night during the Frankfurt Book Fair.
CNN contacted Wylie but did not receive an immediate response.
