Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie (1981)
“A man born at the exact midnight of Indian independence discovers that history isn't something that happens to you — you ARE it, and it is trying to kill you.”
Why This Book Matters
Won the 1981 Booker Prize and was subsequently named the Booker of Bookers (1993) and the Best of the Booker (2008) — the greatest Booker Prize winner across all years of the prize. Single-handedly established postcolonial fiction as a dominant form in English literature, opening the way for a generation of writers (Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, Aravind Adiga) to write the Indian subcontinent in English on their own formal terms rather than in imitation of English models.
Firsts & Innovations
First major novel to use magical realism to narrate the specific history of South Asian independence and partition
Established the 'midnight's children' generation — the cohort born at the moment of decolonization — as a literary and cultural concept
First novel to successfully adapt the Scheherazade narrative frame for postcolonial historical fiction
Demonstrated that the English language could be formally stretched to accommodate non-English narrative traditions without translating those traditions into something Western
Cultural Impact
Transformed the literary landscape for South Asian writers — Rushdie gave the Indian subcontinent's story permission to be told in a voice that was neither colonial nor apologetically postcolonial
The phrase 'midnight's children' entered common parlance as shorthand for the generation that came of age with India's independence
Sparked the 'fatwa' crisis when The Satanic Verses (1988) drew on similar techniques — the novel's formal innovations were always understood as politically dangerous
Adapted for stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company (2002) — one of the most ambitious theatrical adaptations of a contemporary novel
Regularly appears in lists of the 100 greatest English-language novels, and on every major postcolonial literature syllabus worldwide
Banned & Challenged
Banned in India and Bangladesh after Indira Gandhi sued over the novel's depiction of her and the Emergency. The ban in India lasted from 1988 until the 1990s (ironically, the book was banned by the government it was critiquing, which rather confirmed its accuracy). The novel is still a legally sensitive document in India.