The suspect in the stabbing attack on Sir Salman Rushdie has been charged with attempted second degree murder, US officials have said.

Police have identified the alleged attacker as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from Fairview, New Jersey.

The assault on Friday left the 75-year-old author gravely injured.

He remains on a ventilator and may lose an eye, his agent, Andrew Wylie, has said.

He also suffered severed nerves in an arm and damage to his liver.

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The motive for the assault is not yet known, but police believe the suspect was acting alone.

Moderator Henry Reese suffered a minor head injury after also being attacked, officers said.

“The individual responsible for the attack, Hadi Matar, has now been formally charged with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree,” Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said in a statement.

“He was arraigned on these charges last night and remanded without bail.”

Both state and federal authorities are looking at whether any additional charges should be added, Mr Schmidt said.

According to NBC News, which cited a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation, a preliminary review of his social media showed Matar had sympathies for Shia extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

FBI officials went to his last listed address, in Fairview, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan on Friday evening, NBC New York said.

Sir Salman was being introduced to the audience before giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State when a man stormed the stage and stabbed or punched him 10 to 15 times, according to witnesses.

The author was taken to hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, by helicopter.

For years, he was forced into hiding and received death threats after his book The Satanic Verses was published in 1988.

He was going to give a talk on freedom of expression and the United States as a safe haven for writers.

Sir Salman lives in New York City and became a US citizen in 2016.

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