Hanif Kureishi says Salman Rushdie has written to him every day since his fall

Hanif Kureishi says Sir Salman Rushdie has written to him every day as he continues to recover from a fall which left him unable to move his arms or legs.

The author and playwright, 68, posted a lengthy update on his condition online, in which he said Sir Salman had encouraged him to be patient.

Kureishi – best known for his works The Buddha Of Suburbia, Intimacy and Mother – revealed on Twitter that he was being treated at a hospital in Rome following an incident on December 26.

He said he had begun to feel “dizzy” while on a walk in the Italian capital and had fallen forward, waking up minutes later in a pool of blood with his neck “in a grotesquely twisted position”.

Sharing an update on Twitter on Monday, he wrote: “I sat up today,” adding that his motion remained limited, but that his hospital experience was “certainly good for creativity”.

“I can hold up my right hand a little. I can’t close or open my fingers. My hands are inert, stiff and swollen, and they could just as well belong to someone else,” he said.

“These experiences are terrible, but I am beginning to see they are not so unusual.”

He continued: “My friend Salman Rushdie, one of the bravest men I know, a man who has stood up to the most evil form of Islamofascism, writes to me every single day, encouraging patience.

“He should know. He gives me courage.”

Indian-born British novelist Sir Salman was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state on August 12 last year when he was attacked and stabbed numerous times on stage.

The 75-year-old, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye.

His attacker, 25-year-old Hadi Matar, has made multiple appearances at Chautauqua County Court in New York, having pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges following the incident.