Salman Rushdie’s novel "The Satanic Verses," returned to USA Today’s best-selling books list after the author was stabbed in the neck last Friday as he was preparing to deliver a lecture on artistic freedom.
The book debuted at No. 59 one week after a New Jersey man allegedly stabbed Rushdie 10 times on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York.
Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye. He has since been taken off a ventilator and is on the "road to recovery," according to his literary agent Andrew Wylie.
Hadi Matar, 24, will be arraigned on a grand jury indictment Thursday during a court hearing. He was indicted on one count of second-degree attempted murder and one count of assault in the second degree.
The attack comes 33 years after Iran's then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie the year after "The Satanic Verses" was published.
The Indian-born writer has since lived with a bounty on his head after writing the book, which some Muslims say contains blasphemous passages about Islam.
In an interview published by the New York Post on Wednesday, Matar said he respected Khomeini but would not say if he was inspired by the fatwa. He said he had "read a couple of pages" of "The Satanic Verses" and watched YouTube videos of the author.
"I don't like him very much," Matar said of Rushdie, as reported in the Post. "He's someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems."
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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