In a similar assault incident as Salman Rushdie, A Norwegian translator, William Nygaard was also shot in a quiet suburb 25 years ago
The Norwegian edition of Rushdie’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses was shot three times on Oct 11, 1993 and left for dying alone.
Know Who Is William Nygaard Norwegian Translator Shot At For Translating The Satanic Verses By Salman Rushdie After Fatwa By Iran, Age, Biography
Had no idea how many Salman Rushdie’s collaborators had been attacked.
In 1991 the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed in Tokyo.
The Italian translator was badly wounded in Milan.
The Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was shot.
— Megha Mohan (@meghamohan) August 13, 2022
Another victim of Sir Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses was the Norwegian publisher William Nygaard.
On the 11 Oct 1993, Nygaard (left) was shot 3 times outside his home in Oslo but survived.
An Iranian diplomat & Lebanese Khaled Moussawi are charged but not convicted. pic.twitter.com/8iLR9MCcOK
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) August 13, 2022
Rushdie's translators Hitoshi Igarashi (Japanese) and Ettore Capriolo (Italian) were attacked in 1991. Igarashi was killed, Capriolo survived. In 1993, William Nygaard (Norwegian) was shot & wounded, and an arson attack on Aziz Nesin (Turkish) killed 37 others. 1/2 https://t.co/gVxDbHY9f7
— Smaran Dayal (@smaran) August 13, 2022
However, he survived and recovered from his brutal wounds. The Norwegian authorities at that time, ruled out any connection of assault with Rushdie’s controversial book and for more than 2 decades nobody was charged for the crime.
But it all changed on Tuesday, when Norwegian police announced that they have pressed charges on a suspect in connection with the shooting just two days before the statute of limitations was set to expire in the case.
At the time, the 75-year-old translator said in an interview that, “I feel safe that this is at least a serious try and a serious will to come one step forward”. He later added, “The political situation is very different right now”.
The former CEO of Aschehoug publishing house further told the media that he remembers the shooting incident like it happened yesterday.
In a recent interview, he also said that it was early morning and he had just returned home from a book fare when he found the front tire of his car was slashed and the security alarm also went off. He was waiting by his car for a cab after he disabled the alarm when the first bullet struck.
Later, he said, “And all of a sudden an enormous kind of electrical shock I felt. After a second or something like that, the second electrical shock.
That was the second shot. … And then I really screamed all of a sudden as much as I could, as a kind of reflex probably”.
He further said that he began scrambling his way toward a nearby hill when the third shot struck him and left him unable to move. But he still cried out loud.
He said, “And luckily enough, I was heard by the neighbours”. Later, he woke up in a hospital and realized those “shocks” that he had felt were in fact bullets.
However, the authorities at the time treated the incident as a crime but not an assassination attempt related to novel.
The Controversial book sparked widespread protests and attacks on bookstores, translators and many more in connection with the book as in the year 1989, a fatwa was issued against Rushdie by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini who called out on Muslims to execute the writer.
Due to a rise in death threats, the original author of the Controversial book went into hiding for 9 years under the protection of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch.
In a similar incident, in 1991, a Japanese scholar and translator of the book, Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to death in Tokyo in his office in Tsukuba University and another Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo was also stabbed but he somehow survived.
Reopening the William Nygaard Shooting case
Nygaard’s shooting case was reopened in 2010. The case was reopened following the publication of a book ‘Who Shot William Nygaard?’ by journalist Odd Isungset.
In the book, the journalists outlined many details of the case and many problems that were seen in the original investigation of the case. The journalists also pointed out fingers at a suspect who bought a one-way ticket to Iran in cash the day after the attack.
At the time, he told the Guardian publications in a statement that, “This is a really important case. the only terror attack on Norwegian soil since World War II”.
Later, in a press release the Norwegian police explicitly linked the attack with the novel.
The statement reads that, “The investigation yields no evidence of any other motive for the attempted killing than the publication of The Satanic Verses in April 1989”.
He is the chairman of the Norwegian chapter of PEN, an international writers organization that advocates freedom of expression.
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