Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck on stage Friday before giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. The Satanic Verses writer has a net worth of $10 million.

The 75-year-old released his first novel – a work of fantasy and science-fiction titled Grimus – in 1975. Rushdie’s breakthrough came in 1981 when he released his second novel, Midnight’s Children, which focused on the life of a child who was born at midnight on the day of India’s independence. The novel went on to win the Booker Prize. Following this, Rushdie released Shame, which was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize in 1983.

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In 1988, Rushdie released his most controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which was highly acclaimed by critics but drew extreme outrage among many Muslims. In February 1989, a fatwa was issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the then-leader of Iran, ordering the assassination of Rushdie.

Rushdie’s next novel was 1995’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, which was followed by 1999’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, 2001’s New York-set Fury, and 2005’s Shalimar the Clown. Among Rushdie’s other novels are The Enchantress of Florence, The Golden House, and Quichotte.

Rushdie has also written non-fiction books, essay collections, and children’s stories. His first full-length non-fiction work The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey was published in 1987. It was followed by Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, Step Across This Line, The East is Blue, and the autobiography Joseph Anton: A Memoir.

In 2021, Rushdie released Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020.

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Rushdie wrote the 1990 fantasy book Haroun and the Sea of Stories and the 2010 sequel Luka and the Fire of Life.

He has been honored with many awards including the European Union’s Aristeion Prize for Literature, Germany’s Write of the Year Award, the Golden PEN Award, the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, and the award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism from Harvard University.

Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in June of 2007 for his services to literature.