A long road to recovery for Salman Rushdie

MAYVILLE, N. Y. — Salman Rushdie is “on the road to recovery,” his agent said Sunday, two days after the author of “The Satanic Verses” suffered serious injuries in a stabbing that occurred on a lecture stage in upstate New York.

The announcement followed news that the writer, 75, was removed from a ventilator Saturday and was able to talk and joke.

Literary agent Andrew Wylie cautioned that although Rushdie’s “condition is headed in the right direction,” his recovery would be a long process.

Rushdie suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, Wylie previously said, and appeared likely to lose the injured eye.

“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact,” Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie said in a statement Sunday, stressing that the author remained in critical condition. The statement on behalf of the family expressed gratitude for the “audience members who bravely leapt to his defence,” as well as police, doctors and “the outpouring of love and support from around the world.”

Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, N. J., pleaded not guilty Saturday to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called “a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack” at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center.

The attack was met with global shock and outrage, along with praise for Rushdie, who, for more than three decades, has weathered death threats and a $ 3million bounty on his head over “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie spent nine years in hiding under a U. K. government protection program.

“It’s an attack against his body, his life and against every value that he stood for,” said Henry Reese, 73, co- founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, who was on the stage with Rushdie at the time of the attack and suffered a gash to his forehead, bruising and other minor injuries. They had planned to discuss the need for safety and freedom of expression for writers.

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family and has lived in Britain and the U. S., is known for his surreal and satirical prose, starting with his Booker Prize- winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” in which he criticized then- Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Infused with magical realism, 1988’ s “The Satanic Verses” drew ire from some Muslims who regarded elements of the novel as blasphemy. In 1989, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. Khomeini died that same year, but the fatwa remains in effect.

Investigators were trying to determine whether Matar, who was born nearly a decade after the novel’s publication, acted alone. A prosecutor alluded to the standing fatwa as a potential motive while arguing against bail.