Salman Rushdie, the Mumbai-born author of several controversial books such as "The Satanic Verses", was stabbed and seriously injured prior to his lecture in New York on 12 August. However, the book has topped several Amazon bestsellers lists as of Tuesday, 16 August.
The attack caused severe damage to the award-winning author's liver and severed nerves in one arm, according to the author's agent Andrew Wylie. Rushdie has since then been taken off a ventilator on Saturday and was able to speak again.
The 75-year-old author rose to popularity with his Booker Prize-winning novel published in 1981, titled Midnight's Children, which was based on the children born on the midnight of 15 August, 1947, partition of India.
His fourth book The Satanic Verses, published in 1988 forced him into hiding for nine years. Some readers found the book blasphemous for its depiction of Islam and Rushdie has dealt with more than 30 years of death threats and a $3 million bounty on his head.
As per a report by CNBC, over the span of the weekend after Rushdie's stabbing, The Satanic Verses rose to the top of several Amazon's bestselling books lists on Monday and Tuesday.
The book stood out as the #1 Bestseller in Amazon's Literary Satire Fiction list and in the Contemporary British & Irish Literature list. Even the Spanish translation of the novel also skyrocketed to the Bestsellers in Literature & Fiction in Spanish page.
In stark contrast to last Friday's lists when Rushdie's books did not even make the top 100 last week, according to Wayback Machine's archive of Amazon's Bestseller page.
Rushdie's former wife and TV personality Padma Lakshmi shared her relief that the author was "pulling through" after the attack of 12 August.
Chennai-born Lakshmi married Rushdie in 2004 and got divorced in 2007. Lakshmi, 51, who is an author and the host of TopChef, the hit culinary TV show, was Rushdie's fourth wife.
(With inputs from The American Bazaar and CNBC)
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