“He’s on a ventilator, so the long road to recovery has begun,” Andrew Wylie said. “It will take a long time; the injuries are serious, but his condition is improving.” Wylie told The New York Times on Saturday that Rushdie had spoken again.
Rushdie was stabbed Friday during a lecture in western New York state. The 75-year-old writer sustained ten stab wounds, including in his neck, abdomen and eye. Shortly after the stabbing, a suspect, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, was arrested.
The motive behind the stabbing is not yet clear. It is suspected that the attack has something to do with the death sentence (fatwa) passed on Rushdie in the late 1980s by the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of his book The Devil’s Verses. The work is considered blasphemous by many Muslims.
