Midnight's Children

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Born at the precise moment when India gained independence, the hero of this novel, Saleem Sinai, represents India as a country and his experiences and emotions paint a story of the tragedies and events that took place after India’s independence. The supernatural twist to what might otherwise have been any ordinary chronicle arouses the reader’s curiosity, when Saleem realizes that he has telepathic powers. In a short while he realizes that everyone born on August 15, 1947, between 12 and 1 a.m., are gifted with these special powers. Saleem summons all of them to a meeting of ‘Midnight’s Children’, where they discuss issues related to finding solutions to the country’s problems. When Saleem finally finds his roots he marries his faithful lover and friend Padma. While he recounts his whole life to her, however, there are numerous discrepancies in his tale. The author hints at how history can be changed over time. He talks about how a country’s history is detailed in several versions of the truth, not intentionally, but as a result of different perspectives arising out of the experiences of different lives. Saleem foresees his own death as his body breaking into fragments - just as India, after desperate attempts to be unified, has split into disparate fragments of religion and culture. Released in 1981, Midnight’s Children is Salman Rushdie’s second novel. The novel is divided into three books and written in the first person narrative, combining the genres of post-colonial literature and magical realism. It won the 1981 Booker Prize, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the English Speaking Union Literary Award. It was included in the list of Great Books of the 20th Century too.

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Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist, copywriter, and essayist, who was knighted for his literary services. Salman’s debut novel, Grimus, was a science fiction story that did not receive much acclaim. His third book, Shame, won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger. The Satanic Verses (1988), caused life-threatening controversy due to the book’s content, and a Fatwa was issued against the author. Some of his other celebrated novels are The Jaguar Smile, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, The Enchantress of Florence, and Shalimar The Clown. He also authored several books of short stories including East West, The Best American Short Stories, andHaroun and the Sea of Stories. Salman Rushdie did not limit his work to novels, and has written several commendable essays, the screenplay for the movie adaptation of Midnight’s Children, and also the script for a television series. Rushdie’s writings demonstrate multiple styles of writing, generally merging religion, fantasy, and mythology with historical and present-day reality. Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947, into a Muslim family of Kashmiri origin. After studying in Mumbai, he went on to study history at King’s College, at the University of Cambridge. Rushdie wrote Midnight’s Children while working as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather. In 1989, his execution was demanded by an Islamic leader, as his novel Satanic Verses was perceived to blaspheme the prophet Muhammad, and he was obliged to live under police protection. Salman lived mostly in New York City and has been married five times and has two sons.