Salman Rushdie suffered serious, life-changing injuries, but his “usual spicy and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” according to his family.
The 75-year-old author has a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and eye after being stabbed during a lecture in New York on Friday.
In a statement, his son Zafar said the family was “relieved” that he had been taken off the ventilator on Saturday.
He said: “After Friday’s attack, my father is still in critical condition in hospital receiving extensive medical treatment.
“We are very relieved that he was taken off the ventilator and supplemental oxygen yesterday and that he was able to say a few words.
“While his life-changing injuries are serious, his usual spirited and defiant sense of humor remains intact.
“We are so grateful to all the onlookers who bravely jumped to his defense and provided first aid, along with the police and doctors who looked after him and for the outpouring of love and support from around the world.
“We ask for patience and privacy as the family gathers at his bedside to support and help him through this time.”
In an update on his condition on Sunday, his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said: “He is off the ventilator so the road to recovery has begun.
“It will take a long time, the injuries are serious, but his condition is moving in the right direction.”
The Indian-born Briton, whose novel The Satanic Verses sparked death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was about to lecture at the Chautauqua Institute, 65 miles from Buffalo, New York, when he was attacked.
The man charged with stabbing him pleaded not guilty on Saturday to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” crime.
A lawyer for Hadi Matar, 24, argued on his behalf at a formal hearing in a western New York court.
Matar appeared in court in a black and white jumpsuit and white facemask, his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him to be held without bail after prosecutor Jason Schmidt told her Matar was taking steps to deliberately put himself in a position to harm Sir Salman, by getting an entry pass to the event where the author was speaking and arrived the day before with a false identity card.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr Rushdie,” said Mr Schmidt.
Public defender Nathaniel Barone said the authorities had taken too long to get Matar to appear in court as they had him “wired up to a bench in the state police barracks”.
“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.
Sir Salman was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, police said before being taken to hospital.
Publisher of Sir Salman Penguin Random House said they were “deeply shocked and appalled” by the incident.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed while exercising a right that we should never cease to defend”.
He added: “Right now my thoughts are with his loved ones. We all hope he’s okay.”
Labor Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Salman Rushdie has long embodies the fight for freedom and liberty against those they want to destroy.
“This cowardly attack on him yesterday is an attack on those values. The entire Labor Party is praying for his full recovery.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said: “Today the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack on the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is terrible.
“All of us in the Biden-Harris administration pray for his speedy recovery. We are grateful to the good civilians and first responders for their assistance to Mr Rushdie so soon after the attack and to law enforcement officers for their prompt and effective work, which is underway.”
The President of the Royal Society of Literature, Bernardine Evaristosaid she was pleased to hear he was off the ventilator, adding: “People will always disagree, but we have the right to express an opinion and artistic freedom should be a human right.
“So – Yes to argument; no to violence.”
Sir Salman began his writing career in the early 1970s with two failed books for Midnight’s Children, about the birth of India, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.
After the fatwa, the author went into hiding for years in London under a protection program of the British government.
In 1998, the Iranian government withdrew its support for the death sentence, and Sir Salman gradually returned to public life, even appearing as himself in the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary.
The Index on Censorship, an organization that promotes free speech, said money was raised in 2016 to increase the pay for Sir Salman’s murder, underlining that the fatwa still applies.
He was knighted in 2008 and earlier this year he was made a member of the Order of the Guests of Honor as part of the Queen’s Birthday.