French intellectuals considered this Sunday that the next Nobel Prize for Literature should be awarded to the British writer Salman Rushdie, stabbed on Friday in the state of New York.
The incident occurred 33 years after he was sentenced to death by the Iranian regime for his novel the satanic verses and shortly before the Bombay-born author reportedly gave a lecture on freedom of expression.
The union of the JDD of the day of August 14:
> Salman Rushdie, I freed her poignardée
> Sécheresse, canicule, feux de forêt… 2022 more than 1976?
> Trump prepares his revenge
> PSG : return gagnant for Mbappé pic.twitter.com/lNMzAW0NlA– Le JDD (@leJDD) August 13, 2022
“I can’t imagine any other writer who has the audacity, today, to deserve it more than him. The campaign starts now”, wrote the French media philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Lévy in the pages of the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD).
Rushdie, who his literary agent said today is on the road to recovery, is the target of a fatwa (religious pronouncement that may have legal force in Islam) issued by Iran since the late 1980s, when he published his novel the satanic verses. Ayatollah Khomeini, then supreme leader of the Persian country, issued a decision in which he called for the novelist to be killed with the promise of a $3 million reward.
Rusdhie, “has been punished for having written, for 30 years, free texts that make you free, and he deserves reparation,” pointed out Lévy. This request was joined by the former French Minister of Culture Françoise Nyssen, co-director of the Actes Sud publishing house, which publishes Rushdie’s work in France. Nyssen considered that this recognition could strengthen Rushdie’s security and position before “these crazy people”.
Authorities in New York charged Hadi Matar on Saturday with attempted murder and assault with a weapon, and he remains in custody without bail. According to reports from international agencies, Matar, 24, remained silent in court where the charges were filed. A public defender assigned to the case pleaded not guilty on his behalf, according to the newspaper. New York Times.
Rushdie received several stab wounds to the neck, abdomen and arms, but according to his literary agent he is “on the road to recovery”. This announcement followed the news that he had been removed from a ventilator with the aid of which he was breathing. After that he was able to talk and joke, according to App.
Andrew Wylie, the writer’s literary agent, further revealed that while Rushdie’s “condition is heading in the right direction,” his recovery will be a long process. Rushdie, 75, suffered liver and nerve damage in one arm and one eye, Wylie had previously said.
With information from Efe and Ap.
