Novelist Salman Rushdie, who was attacked during a lecture in upstate New York in August more than 30 years after Iranian leaders issued a fatwa against him, has lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand because of the assault, his agent said.

In an interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper, Mr. Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed for the first time the extent of the writer’s injuries. Mr. Wylie would not disclose whether the author is out of the hospital yet out of fear for his safety, but said the important thing is that he survived the brutal assault.

Mr. Rushdie’s wounds “were profound,” Mr. Wylie said. “He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut. And he has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso. So, it was a brutal attack.”

Mr. Wylie said he and the author had discussed the possibility of an attack after Iran’s former leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, issued the fatwa after the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in 1989, which some Muslims viewed as blasphemous for its retelling of passages from the Qur’an.

“The principal danger that he faced so many years after the fatwa was imposed is from a random person coming out of nowhere and attacking [him],” Mr. Wylie said. “So, you can’t protect against that because it’s totally unexpected and illogical. It was like John Lennon’s murder.”

In the attack at Chautauqua, New York, Mr. Rushdie was stabbed in the neck and abdomen multiple times by an attacker later identified as a 24-year-old New Jersey man, Hadi Matar, who was arrested at the scene. Mr. Rushdie had been set to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution.

Matar has been charged with second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault in connection with the August 12 attack. Law enforcement sources have told reporters that Matar was “sympathetic to Shia extremism and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps causes.”

Mr. Rushdie spent years in hiding, amid threats from Iran and its proxies following the fatwa. He faced an assassination attempt in 1989, but had previously escaped direct harm. Others connected to the novel were not so lucky.

In 1991, Mr. Rushdie’s Japanese translator, Hitorshi Igarashi, was found stabbed to death. His Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was seriously wounded in another stabbing. His Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot in the back. His Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, was targeted in a bombing that killed 37 people. 

In 2016, Iranian state media reported that the bounty on Mr. Rushdie had been raised by $600,000 to emphasize that “Imam Khomeini’s fatwa is a religious decree and it will never lose its power or fade out.” Al-Qaeda has also had Mr. Rushdie in its sights: In 2010, he appeared on a “hit list” in its English-language publication, Inspire.

In 2019, Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, said “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and just like divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable.”