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This is on point. I'm Magnita Crabardi.

The writer Salman Roushti remains in critical condition a week after he was brutally

attacked while on stage in western New York.

His life-changing injuries are severe. Roushti's son said in a statement,

but his usual feisty and defiant sense of humor remains intact.

The knife attack comes more than 30 years after the Iranian Ayatollah Rukhola Khomeini

issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for Roushti's death.

That followed the publication of Roushti's novel, The Satanic Versus.

But what was so scary about the novel that a powerful national religious and state leader

called for a writer's murder?

The Satanic Versus refers to an incident in the Prophet Muhammad's life.

In Roushti's book, a character named Mahoon appears in dreams.

And in one scene, another character tells Mahoon'd quote,

first we said, Mahoon'd will never compromise.

And you compromised. Then we said, Mahoon'd has betrayed us,

but you are bringing us a deeper truth.

...