A bloodied Rushdie, 75, was flown to a hospital and underwent surgery. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said the writer was on a ventilator Friday evening, with a damaged liver, severed nerves in his arm and an eye he was likely to lose.
Police identified the attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. He was awaiting arraignment following his arrest at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and rereat center where Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, a co-founder of an organization that offers residencies to writers facing persecution, was also attacked. Reese suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to discuss the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday's attack, which led an evening news bulletin on Iranian state television. "Salman has been an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world," McEwan said in a statement. "He is a fiery and generous spirit, a man of immense talent and courage and he will not be deterred."
Khomeini died the same year he issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie's death. Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, never issued a fatwa of his own withdrawing the edict, though Iran in recent years hasn't focused on the writer.
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