The man who was to present the conference with Salman Rushdie in the northern United States, and who was on stage with the writer when he was stabbed, said Sunday that he first believed “a bad joke.”
It was “very difficult to understand” the situation at the time, explained Henry Reese in an interview with CNN.
“It seemed like some kind of bad joke, and it didn’t seem real. When there was blood behind it, it became real,” said the 73-year-old, who declined to elaborate. about the exact course of the attack.
“We should all be worried about Salman Rushdie, not me”
He said he “immediately” thought of the fatwa addressed to the 30-year-old writer, but initially believed it to be a tasteless “innuendo”, not a “real attack”.
He himself was injured and responded to questions from CNN with a large white bandage over his swollen black right eye.
“I’m fine,” he said. “We should all be worried about Salman Rushdie, not me.”
The event, which took place at a cultural center in the small town of Chautauqua, New York, was to focus on the “City of Asylum” movement, co-founded by Henry Reese. The association is dedicated to defending the freedom of expression of writers and artists in danger because of their work, and in particular offers them temporary accommodation in the United States.
It was precisely a speech by Salman Rushdie, in the nearby city of Pittsburgh, in 1997, that inspired my wife and me to create this organization”, explained Henry Reese.
The recovering writer
“That’s the grim irony, or maybe the intent: not just to attack her body, but everything she stands for,” he continued.
“As readers, we should all go buy a Salman Rushdie book this week and read it,” he said.
The author, the target of a fatwa from Iran for his novel “The Satanic Verses” published in 1988, remains hospitalized in the United States and his injuries are serious, but he is currently on the mend, according to his agent.
Source: BFM TV
