Midnight's Children
Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by author Salman Rushdie. It portrays India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.In 2003, the novel was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels". It was also added to the list of Great Books of the 20th Century, published by Penguin Books.
Stats for nerds
18recommend
31mentions
30people
2009–2026years
58% recommend35% neutral6% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Let me go re read "Midnight's Children" for the umpteenth time
- I haven't read Evaristo but I will add Salman Rushdie to your list. Particularly, Midnight's Children.
- > At the height of it I thought I would eventually learn to smell the future.
Oddly enough, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children covers this exact feeling almost in the same way as you describe. If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend it - it’s a long read but also very enojoyable.
- For anyone who has had their appetite whet for Indian pickles, the book Midnight's Children has pickles as an important secondary plot point, and the vivid description of the pickles in that book have stayed with me for a long time.
- A lot of my absolutely favorite books are rated below 4.0. A few examples:
1. White Noise at 3.86
2. Catch-22 at 3.99
3. Dhalgren at 3.77
4. At Swim-Two-Birds at 3.86
5. Midnight's Children at 3.98
6. Омон Ра at 3.90
7. Never Let Me Go at 3.84
Drawing the line at 4 rules out some of the most interesting books.
In my experience, you really have to fall below 3.5 to get consistently bad books, and even then it's not 100% guaranteed.
- Unless you are specifically interested in the history of the response to the Satanic Verses and what it means about world society, I would recommend 'Midnight's Children' as a better book, and a better example of what is interesting about Salman Rushdie's work.
