Author Salman Rushdie was attacked on stage as he was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday.A man stormed the stage at about 11 a.m. as the 75-year-old novelist was about to speak. A video shared by Twitter user @piluchiils shows emergency responders on stage assisting Rushdie, and bringing a stretcher to transport him.The New York State Police said in a statement that Rushdie sustained an apparent stab wound to the neck and was transported by helicopter to the hospital. Police also said an interviewer sustained a minor head injury.A state trooper at the event quickly detained the suspect, and the Chautauqua County Sheriffs Office. The suspects identity was not immediately released.Rushdie was born in Mumbai, India, and educated in England. The “Satanic Verses” author famously received death threats from Iran, where the book was banned in 1988 for blasphemy. Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1989 calling on Muslims to kill him. Rewards have been offered for his killing in the years since.
