In I993, William Nygaard, the publisher of the Norwegian edition of The Satanic Verses, was severely wounded after being shot three times outside his home in Oslo. He said of the attack on Rushdie:

Rushdie has paid a high price. He is a leading author who has meant so much to literature, and he had found a good life in the United States.

In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the scholar who translated Verses into Japanese was stabbed to death, his body found at the Tsukuba University campus, northeast of Tokyo.

In the same year, Ettore Capriolo, the translator of the Italian version, was attacked and stabbed in Milan, suffering knife wounds to his neck, chest, and hands.