Who is Salman Rushdie and why is he controversial?

Sir Salman Rushdie is an author known for writing The Satanic Verses, a book deemed by Iran as being blasphemous to Islam.

Yesterday (August 12), Mr Rushdie was stabbed in the neck and abdomen on stage at the Chautauqua Institution as he prepared to deliver a lecture.

After winning the Booker Prize in 1981, Mr Rushdie went on to write one of the most controversial books in recent literary history, The Satanic Verse, which immediately saw angry demonstrations.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa in 1989 with a $3 million bounty ordering Muslims to kill the author.

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