After the author Salman Rushdie was stabbed on Friday at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, state and federal investigators were trying to determine the suspect’s motivation, plans, communication and movements as Mr. Rushdie remained in a precarious condition on Saturday.
Mr. Rushdie, who had spent decades under proscription by Iran, was on a ventilator after undergoing hours of surgery and could not speak, Andrew Wylie, his agent, said in an email on Friday evening. Efforts to reach Mr. Wylie on Saturday were unsuccessful.
Mr. Wylie said on Friday that the author’s condition was “not good.” Mr. Rushdie might lose an eye, his liver had been damaged and the nerves in his arm were severed, he said.
Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said on Saturday that he was appalled by the attack on the author, who decades ago became a symbol of freedom of expression in the face of repression.
“In no case is violence a response to words spoken or written by others in their exercise of the freedoms of opinion and expression,” Mr. Guterres said in a statement.
Salman Rushdie’s Most Influential Work
Salman Rushdie’s Most Influential Work
“Midnight’s Children” (1981). Salman Rushdie’s second novel, about modern India’s coming-of-age, received the Booker Prize, and became an international success. The story is told through the life of Saleem Sinai, born at the very moment of India’s independence.
The New York State Police said at a news conference on Friday afternoon that there was no indication of a motive, but that they were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder and assault, the New York State Police said. He is being held at the Chautauqua County Jail, where he was to be arraigned on Saturday, according to officials.
A video on TikTok that was subsequently taken down showed the chaotic scene on Friday, moments after the attacker had jumped onto the stage at the normally placid center for intellectual discourse. Mr. Rushdie, who had been living relatively openly after years of a semi-clandestine existence, had just taken a seat to give a talk when a man attacked him.
A crowd of people immediately rushed to where the author lay on the stage to offer aid. Stunned members of the audience could be seen throughout the amphitheater. While some were screaming, others got up and moved slowly toward the stage. People started to congregate in the aisles. A person could be heard yelling “Oh, my God” repeatedly.
A sheriff’s deputy and another law enforcement officer with a dog ran to the scene about a minute later.
In a statement on Friday, the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called the attack against Mr. Rushdie “reprehensible.”
“This act of violence is appalling,” he said.
The state police did not provide an update on Mr. Rushdie’s condition on Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for a hospital in Erie, Pa., where Mr. Rushdie is being treated, said it would not provide information on patient conditions.
At a house listed as Mr. Matar’s residence in Fairview, N.J., no one answered the door on Saturday morning. A woman in a gray Jeep Rubicon in the driveway kept her windows up, waving off reporters as she sped away. Many of Mr. Matar’s neighbors said they did not know him.
Antonio Lopa, who lives across the street from Mr. Matar, said he saw between 10 and 15 F.B.I. agents outside Mr. Matar’s home on Friday afternoon. They stayed until nearly 1:30 a.m., he said.
Officials said at a news conference on Friday that they were working to get search warrants for a backpack and electronic devices that were found at the institution.
Mr. Rushdie had been living under the threat of an assassination attempt since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” The book fictionalized parts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad with depictions that offended some Muslims, who believed the novel to be blasphemous. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran after its 1979 revolution, issued an edict known as a fatwa on Feb. 14, 1989. It ordered Muslims to kill Mr. Rushdie.
In 1991, the novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death and its Italian translator was badly wounded. The novel’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times in 1993 outside his home in Oslo and was seriously injured.
Elizabeth Harris, Chelsia Rose Marcius and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
