The writer Salman Rushdie began the “road of recovery”two days following being stabbed in the neck and abdomen at a literary event in New York, his agent, Andrew Wylie, reported on Sunday.
“The injuries are severe but his condition is heading in the right direction”Wylie confirmed to The Washington Post, although he clarified that the recovery process “might be long”.
This Saturday, Rushdie breathed on his own once more, following doctors removed the ventilator that provided him with assisted breathing. Wylie also pointed out that the writer spoke for the first time following Friday’s attack.
According to the information provided by Wylie, the attack damaged the nerves in one of his arms, affected his liver and is “likely” to cause the loss of an eye.
The family is “extremely relieved” that he has come off the ventilator and said “a few words,” his son Zafar said on Twitter from London. “My father is still in critical condition in hospital and receiving intensive and ongoing treatment. “, he added
“We are extremely relieved that yesterday they took off his respirator and he might say a few words”, he continued and indicated that, despite the “seriousness” of some injuries “that will change his life”, “his quarrelsome and insolent sense of humor remains intact”.
The 75-year-old writer was attacked in public last Friday, moments before intervening in a literary act.
The man accused of stabbing him, a young American of Lebanese origin, pleaded this Saturday “not guilty” of “attempted murder” in a New York state court.
Rushdie had been sentenced to death in 1989 by the then supreme guide of Iran, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiniwho issued a religious decree (fatwa) ordering Muslims to kill him following the publication of the book “The Satanic Verses”, which he considered blasphemous.