Literature world holds NY rally for Rushdie

Prominent literary figures including Paul Auster and Gay Talese gathered Friday in Manhattan for a reading of Salman Rushdie's works, in solidarity with the author seriously injured in a stabbing attack. More than a dozen acclaimed writers, including friends and colleagues of Rushdie, spoke at the steps of the New York Public Library for the event, which organizers said the novelist had been invited to watch from the hospital. One week ago Rushdie was about to be interviewed as part of a lecture series in upstate New York, when a man stormed the stage and stabbed the 75-year-old writer repeatedly in the neck and abdomen. Rushdie's condition remains serious after emergency surgery but he has shown signs of improvement, and no longer requires assisted breathing.