Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide
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This engaging summary presents an analysis of Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, a powerful portrait of the diversity and richness of Indian culture as embodied by the eponymous “midnight children”, all of whom were born at the moment India became independent and who therefore possess magical talents and an innate connection to their homeland and to each other. However, two of these children, Saleem and Shiva, are even more closely connected than they know, and their rivalry will eventually lead all of the children to their doom… Salman Rushdie is a British Indian writer whose distinctive writing style blends historical fiction and magical realism, often through the perspective of an unreliable narrator. His writing has often sparked controversy, and he was the target of a failed assassination attempt in 1989 as a result. Midnight’s Children is his second novel.
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• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection
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Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Book Analysis) - Bright Summaries
British Indian writer
Born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1947.
Literary awards:
Man Booker Prize, 1981 (for Midnight’s Children)
Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, 2014
PEN Pinter Prize, 2014
Notable honours:
Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire, 2007
Honorary Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Notable works:
Midnight’s Children (1981), novel
The Satanic Verses (1988), novel
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), novel
Shalimar the Clown (2005), novel
Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay on 19 June 1947, two months before the end of British colonialism in India. He grew up in a middle-class Muslim family of Kashmiri descent, although his father was not religious. At home, his family spoke both English, the language of the cultural elite in newly independent India, and Urdu, the national language of Pakistan and one of the 22 official languages of India.
Rushdie left his homeland in 1961, at the age of 14, to study in the UK, where he attended Rugby School, one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the country. He went on to study history at King’s College, University of Cambridge, and graduated in 1968. During this time, Rushdie specialised in Muslim history and religion, which provided him with the theoretical knowledge which would later inform his political ideology and literary style. His writing also draws heavily on Indian history, and on the distinctive blend of indigenous beliefs and mythology and Western influences introduced during the colonial era which has shaped the country’s modern identity.
Rushdie’s literary career began in 1975 with the publication of Grimus, a novel which blends fantasy with elements of science fiction. Although this debut effort was not particularly successful, his literary career took off in 1981 with the publication of his next novel, Midnight’s Children, which