A suspect in author Salman Rushdie's stabbing has been arrested on a charge of attempted murder

• Author Salman Rushdie is on a ventilator after being attacked on stage on Friday.
• Rushdie was stabbed several times and suffered severe damage.

A man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie has been arrested and charged with attempted murder, several outlets reported.

On Friday, Rushdie, the famed but controversial author of "The Satanic Verses," was stabbed twice before a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

Fox News reported that suspect Hadi Matar, 24, is being held in the Chautauqua County jail. He is held without bail.

Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, police said. He suffered severe damage and was placed on a ventilator after being airlifted to a hospital.

"The news is not good," Andrew Wylie, Rushdie's agent said Friday. "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was stabbed and damaged."

The motive for the attack is still not clear. However, Rushdie has previously spent years in hiding after the Iranian cleric Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his assassination in 1989.