Author Salman Rushdie suffers 'apparent stab wound to the neck' in onstage attack

Salman Rushdie.
(Image credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)

Author Salman Rushdie was attacked Friday just before a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, multiple outlets have reported.

An eye-witness account from a reporter with The Associated Press details a man storming the stage before "punching or stabbing" the author — whose controversial writing has notably led to death threats in the past — as he was being introduced. Rushdie, 75, was then "pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained," AP writes.

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.