The trial of a man accused of attacking author Salman Rushdie will begin in a New York court this morning. Hadi Matar allegedly sprinted on stage at an event in upstate New York in August 2022 and stabbed the acclaimed British-American writer at least 10 times.

Author Salman Rushdie has taken the stand in a New York courtroom to testify against the man charged with stabbing him in a frenzied knife attack.

The novelist Salman Rushdie showed a jury his blinded right eye on Tuesday as he testified against the man charged with trying to murder him at a talk at a rural New York venue in 2022.

The 77-year-old author was blinded in one eye in the attack and spent months recovering, a process he detailed in a memoir released last year.

A prosecutor says Salman Rushdie was so stunned when a masked man started to stab him on a stage in western New York that the acclaimed author didn’t even try to fight back.

Salman Rushdie spoke calmly and with occasional dry humor as he testified on Tuesday against the man accused of trying to murder him, the first time the two have been in the same place since the 2022 knife attack on the novelist onstage at a New York arts institute.

The author recounted in vivid testimony the moment when an attacker stabbed him about 15 times as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.

In his own words, author Salman Rushdie describes the moments when a stranger rushed at him on stage in western New York and began attacking him.

Salman Rushdie is expected to testify during the trial, marking the first time he will face his alleged attacker.