(NEW YORK) — Author Salman Rushdie was attacked at an event in New York state on Friday, according to witness accounts and reports.
Rushdie was scheduled to give a lecture at the education center Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, in southwestern New York, Friday morning.
The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to ABC News there was a stabbing at the event where Rushdie was speaking. It did not immediately confirm the victim.
The British-Indian writer faced years of death threats after his novel, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988.
The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the author of blasphemy over the book and in 1989 issued a fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death.
Rushdie spent years in hiding, which he chronicled in his 2012 memoir, Joseph Anton.
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