Midnight's Children
Saleem Sinai is born on the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947 — the exact moment India wins its independence from Britain. Handcuffed to history by that accident of timing, Saleem discovers that all 1,001 children born in India during that first magical hour possess extraordinary gifts, and that his own life is mysteriously and inextricably bound to the fate of his newborn nation.
Narrating his story to the patient Padma as his body seems to be quite literally falling apart, Saleem recounts a teeming family saga that sweeps from Kashmir to Bombay to Pakistan and Bangladesh, across Partition, war, and political upheaval. Chief among the midnight's children is Shiva, born in the same instant and destined to be Saleem's rival and dark twin, their intertwined lives echoing the promise and betrayal of India itself.
Winner of the Booker Prize — and later named the "Booker of Bookers" — Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's dazzling, exuberant masterpiece: a magical-realist epic in which one man's autobiography becomes the biography of a country.
Born at the instant of Indian independence, the telepathic narrator whose life mirrors his nation's.
Born in the same midnight hour, Saleem's rival and dark counterpart.