Literature world gathers in support of Salman Rushdie in New York

Famous authors, including Paul Auster and Gay Talese, met on Friday in Manhattan for a reading of Salman Rushdie's writings in support of the writer who was stabbed multiple times and suffered critical injuries.

More than a dozen renowned authors, including Rushdie's friends and colleagues, spoke at the occasion, which, according to the event's organisers, the novelist was invited to attend from a hospital bed.

Rushdie, 75, was stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen one week ago as he prepared to be questioned as part of a lecture series in upstate New York.

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While Irish author Colum McCann read from the 1992 New Yorker essay "Out of Kansas," American literary journalist John Talese, wearing his trademark fedora and three-piece suit, read an excerpt from Rushdie's book "The Golden House."

Rushdie's essay "On Censorship," which was adapted from a lecture he gave in 2012, was read aloud by American author A.M. Homes, whose own works, like the novel "The End of Alice," have caused controversy over the years.

She read, "No writer really wants to talk about censorship. Censorship is "anti-creation, negative energy, uncreation, the bringing into being of non-being," according to writers who wish to discuss creation.

After Iranian leaders begged for his murder because of how he had portrayed Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in his 1988 book "The Satanic Verses," Rushdie spent years living under police protection.

The book's prologue was read aloud by British novelist and journalist Hari Kunzru.

"Salman once wrote that the role of the writer is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it from going to sleep," Kunzru said. "That's why we're here."

(with inputs from agencies)