Reading Order
Midnight's Children Reading Order
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981) is a complete standalone novel. It follows Saleem Sinai, one of 1,001 children born at the exact moment of India's independence at midnight on August 15, 1947, each of whom possesses supernatural powers. Saleem's powers — telepathy, the ability to connect with the other midnight's children in a 'conference' inside his head — are bound up with the fate of the nation. Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was later selected as the 'Booker of Bookers' — the best novel in the Booker Prize's history — twice (1993 and 2008).
Where to start
Midnight's Children
Complete Midnight's Children Book List
- 1Buy
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie·1981·Standalone — Saleem Sinai born at the moment of Indian independence, one of 1,001 midnight's children with supernatural powers; Booker Prize winner 1981 and 'Booker of Bookers' twice; the defining novel of postcolonial magical realism in English
Midnight's Children — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Midnight's Children a standalone?
Midnight's Children is self-contained. Rushdie has written other novels that can be read as companion pieces — The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) and Shalimar the Clown (2005) deal with similar Indian/postcolonial themes — but they are independent.
How does Midnight's Children use magical realism?
In Midnight's Children, Saleem Sinai is born with a gift for telepathy — he can enter the minds of anyone whose thoughts he encounters and can connect the 1,001 midnight's children in a mental conference. Other characters also have supernatural powers: Parvati the Witch can make herself invisible; Saleem's rival Shiva has enormous knees and superhuman strength. These elements are presented matter-of-factly, in the same register as the historical events they're interwoven with — the Partition, the Emergency, the Bangladesh war — in the tradition of magical realism that Rushdie shares with García Márquez.
Is Midnight's Children difficult to read?
Midnight's Children is long (approximately 530 pages), formally complex, and densely allusive — Rushdie draws on Hindu mythology, Bollywood films, Mughal history, and dozens of other cultural references, some explained and some not. The novel rewards patient reading: Saleem's narrator voice, with its instability ('I have been a swallower of lives') and its digressions and corrections, is initially disorienting and then becomes one of the most distinctive voices in postcolonial fiction. Most readers find the first hundred pages the hardest and then are absorbed.
What is the Midnight's Children Conference?
The Midnight's Children Conference (MCC) is the telepathic connection Saleem uses to bring together all 1,001 children born between midnight and 1 a.m. on August 15, 1947. Each child has a power that varies in proportion to how close their birth was to midnight — those born closest have the strongest powers. The MCC is Rushdie's allegory for the possibility of Indian democracy: 1,001 children with different gifts and different origins who might, if they could work together, become something greater than any of them individually. The tragedy of the novel is what happens to this possibility.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.