Salman
Some piece of ordure physically attacked Salman Rushdie onstage just now.
The Booker Prize winner was speaking at an event at the Chautauqua Institution at the time.
Witnesses say they saw a man run on stage and either punch or stab Mr Rushdie as he was being introduced.
People rushed the stage. More is not currently known. Will update when.
Update:
There’s some irony there, because PEN America got cold feet about honoring Charlie Hebdo after the massacre and Salman was furious with them, for blindingly obvious reasons.
Update 2
Ok that’s not good.
Update 3
The BBC has a live page:
New York State Police have announced that Salman Rushdie has suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck.
A statement said he was flown by helicopter to a local hospital. It also confirmed the attacker was in police custody.
A statement said:
On August 12, 2022, at about 11 am, a male suspect ran up onto the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer. Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck, and was transported by helicopter to an area hospital. His condition is not yet known. The interviewer suffered a minor head injury.”
Update 4
This makes me very very very very angry.
Update 5
From the Beeb again:
Salman Rushdie is in surgery, Reuters news agency quotes his agent as saying.
That’s all we have at the moment, we’ll bring any more information on his condition as we get it.
Religious extremists (or, more likely, men excusing their violent tendencies to themselves by rationalising them as the will of some supernatural entity) are a terrifying bunch. There’s no way to tell who they are until they act.
Also:
Where the hell were his security? And what were they doing? Anyone rushing towards the stage should have been stopped before they got there.
6 March 1989
by Salman Rushdie
Boy, yaar, they sure called me some good names of late:
e.g. opportunist (dangerous). E.g. full-of-hate,
self-aggrandizing, Satan, self-loathing and shrill,
the type it would clean up the planet to kill.
I justjust remember my own goodname still.
Damn, brother. You saw what they did to my face?
Poked out my eyes. Knocked teeth out of place,
stuck a dog’s body under, hung same from a hook,
wrote what-all on my forehead! Wrote ‘bastard’! Wrote ‘crook’!
I justjust recall how my face used to look.
Now, misters and sisters, they’ve come for my voice.
If the Cat got my tongue, look who-who would rejoice–
muftis, politicos, ‘my own people’, hacks.
Still, nameless-and-faceless or not, here’s my choice:
not to shut up. To sing on, in spite of attacks,
to sing (while my dreams are being murdered by facts)
praises of butterflies broken on racks.
tigger – Good question. JK Rowling tweeted that she had dinner with him recently and his security sat at a separate (but nearby) table. From what the NY Governor said it was a state cop who got the attacker off him.
@2 Very apropos, thanks J.A.
I sure hope he gets well soon, the religious zealots must not win.
Apparently he was stabbed multiple times, in the abdomen as well as the neck.
J.A. @2, thanks for sharing that.