On Friday, Rushdie was stabbed twice as he was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.
“The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged," Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie told The New York Times., adding that the writer is on a ventilator and cannot speak.
An update earlier provided by law enforcement officials on Friday identified the stabbing suspect as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old who officials believe acted alone. No charges or motive have yet been determined by investigators.
Police said that Rushdie had been stabbed at least once in the neck and the abdomen. They did not provide further details on his condition at the time.
Officials are presently trying to obtain search warrants for a backpack and electronics that were recovered from the crime scene.
Rushdie is a celebrated India-born British-American author and winner of numerous literary prizes. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued an edict calling for the killing of Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" is considered by some Muslims to be blasphemous.