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	==See also==		==See also==
	~~{{Portal\|India\|Novels}}~~
	*[[List of Midnight's Children characters\|List of ''Midnight's Children'' characters]]		*[[List of Midnight's Children characters\|List of ''Midnight's Children'' characters]]
	*[[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century\|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]]		*[[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century\|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]]

->Nick Levine: Reverted 1 edit by 162.222.252.30 (talk): Citation for this change?

2022-01-04T20:43:52Z

Reverted 1 edit by 162.222.252.30 (talk): Citation for this change?

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{{short description|1981 novel by Salman Rushdie}}
{{for|the film based on the novel|Midnight's Children (film)}}
{{EngvarB|date=December 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}}
{{Infobox book|
| name = Midnight's Children
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = File:MidnightsChildren.jpg
| border = yes
| caption = First edition
| author = [[Salman Rushdie]]
| illustrator =
| cover_artist = Bill Botten
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| genre = [[Magic realism]], [[historiographic metafiction]]
| publisher = [[Jonathan Cape]]
| release_date = 1981
| english_release_date =
| media_type = Print (hardback and paperback)
| pages = 446
| isbn = 0-224-01823-X
| oclc = 8234329
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}
'''''Midnight's Children''''' is a [[1981 in literature|1981 novel]] by author [[Salman Rushdie]]. It portrays India's transition from [[British Raj|British colonial rule]] to [[Indian independence movement|independence]] and the [[partition of India]]. It is considered an example of [[postcolonial literature|postcolonial]], [[Postmodern literature|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.<ref name="Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnight's Children">Mullan, John. "[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/26/salmanrushdie.bookerprize Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnight's Children]." ''Guardian.'' 26 July 2008.</ref> It was awarded the "[[The Best of the Booker|Booker of Bookers]]" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/release/1100|title=Midnight's Children wins the Best of the Booker|publisher=The Man Booker Prizes|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121093026/http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/release/1100|archive-date=21 November 2008|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref name="bob">{{cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7499495.stm | title=Rushdie wins Best of Booker prize | work=BBC News | date=10 July 2008 }}</ref> In 2003, the novel was listed on the [[BBC]]'s [[The Big Read]] poll of the UK's "best-loved novels".<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100_2.shtml "The Big Read"]. BBC. April 2003. Retrieved 26 October 2012</ref> It was also added to the list of [[Great Books of the 20th Century]], published by [[Penguin Books]].

==Background and plot summary==
{{see also|List of Midnight's Children characters}}

''Midnight's Children'' is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily, after the [[Indian Independence Act 1947|independence]] and [[partition of India]]. The protagonist and narrator of the story is [[Saleem Sinai]], born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. He was born with telepathic powers, as well as an enormous and constantly dripping nose with an extremely sensitive sense of smell. The novel is divided into three books.

The first book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to India's independence and partition. Saleem is born precisely at midnight, 15 August 1947, therefore, exactly as old as independent India. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. on that date are imbued with special powers. Saleem, using his telepathic powers, assembles a ''Midnight Children's Conference'', reflective of the issues India faced in its early statehood concerning the cultural, linguistic, religious, and political differences faced by a vastly diverse nation. Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts. In particular, those children born closest to the stroke of midnight wield more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva "of the Knees", Saleem's nemesis, and Parvati, called "Parvati-the-witch," are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem's story.

Meanwhile, Saleem's family begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent. During this period he also suffers amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythological exile in the jungle of [[Sundarbans|Sundarban]], where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the [[Indira Gandhi]]-proclaimed [[The Emergency (India)|Emergency]] and her son [[Sanjay Gandhi#Jama Masjid slum and family planning controversies|Sanjay's "cleansing" of the Jama Masjid slum]]. For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's over-reach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight Children, and there is little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation, a chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by history.

==Major themes==
The technique of [[magical realism]] finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history.<ref name="Stewart"/> The story moves in different parts of Indian Subcontinent – from [[Kashmir]] to [[Agra]] and then to [[Mumbai|Bombay]], [[Lahore]] and [[Dhaka]]. Nicholas Stewart in his essay, "Magic realism in relation to the post-colonial and Midnight's Children," argues that the "narrative framework of ''Midnight's Children'' consists of a tale – comprising his life story – which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative (within a single paragraph Saleem refers to himself in the first person: 'And I, wishing upon myself the curse of [[Nadir Khan]]...;' and the third: '"I tell you," Saleem cried, "it is true. ..."') recalls indigenous Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted ''[[One Thousand and One Nights|Arabian Nights]]''.<ref name="Stewart">{{cite web|url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/rushdie.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230072709/http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/rushdie.htm|last=Stewart|first=N.|title=Magic realism as postcolonialist device in ''Midnight's Children''|date=21 June 1999|archive-date=30 December 2006|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> The events in the book also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in ''Arabian Nights'' (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p. 353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p. 383))."

He also notes that, "the narrative comprises and compresses Indian cultural history."<ref name="Stewart"/> "'Once upon a time,' Saleem muses, 'there were [[Radha]] and [[Krishna]], and [[Rama]] and [[Sita]], and [[Layla and Majnun|Laila and Majnun]]; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) [[Romeo and Juliet]], and [[Spencer Tracy]] and [[Katharine Hepburn]]' (259)." Stewart (citing Hutcheon) suggests that ''Midnight's Children'' chronologically entwines characters from both India and the West, "with post-colonial Indian history to examine both the effect of these indigenous and non-indigenous cultures on the Indian mind and in the light of Indian independence."<ref name="Stewart"/>

== Style ==
''Midnight's Children'' has been called "a watershed in the post-independence development of the Indian English novel", to the extent that the decade after its 1981 publication has been called "post-Rushdie". During that decade, many novels inspired by ''Midnight's Children'' were written by both established and young Indian writers.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rege|first=Josna E.|date=Fall 1997|title=Victim into Protagonist? 'Midnight's Children' and the post-Rushie National Narratives of the Eighties|jstor=29533221|journal=Studies in the Novel|volume=29|issue=3|pages=342–375}}</ref>

Rushdie's innovative use of magic realism allowed him to employ the nation-as-family allegory and at the same time confound it with an impossible telepathy among a multitude of children from a multitude of languages, cultures, regions and religions. No one genre dominates the entire novel, however. It encompasses the comic and the tragic, the real, the surreal, and the mythic. The postcolonial experience could not be expressed by a Western or Eastern, public or private, polarity or unity, any more than any single political party could represent all the people of the nation.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel: Genre and Ideology in R. K Narayan, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya and Salman Rushdie|url=https://archive.org/details/culturalimperial00afza|url-access=registration|last=Afzal-Khan|first=Fawzia|publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press|year=1993}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Salman Rushdie|last=Rubinson|first=Gregory J.|work=Fiction of Rushdie, Barnes, Winterson and Carter: Breaking Cultural and Literary Boundaries in the Work of Four Postmodernists.|publisher=McFarland and Company|year=2005|pages=29–76}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Postcolonial Lack and Aesthetic Promise in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh|last=Schultheis|first=Alexandria W.|work=Regenerative Fictions: Postcolonialism, Psychoanalysis, and the Nation as Family.|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2004|location=New York|pages=105–151}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Salmon Rushdie|last=Eaglestone|first=Robert|last2=McQuillan|first2=Martin|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2013|series=Contemporary Critical Perspectives|location=London}}</ref>

==Reception==
''Midnight's Children'' was awarded the 1981 [[Booker Prize]], the [[English-Speaking Union|English Speaking Union]] Literary Award, and the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize|James Tait Prize]]. It also was awarded [[The Best of the Booker]] prize twice, in 1993 and 2008 (this was an award given out by the Booker committee to celebrate the 25th and 40th anniversary of the award).<ref name="bob" />

The book went on to sell over one million copies in the UK alone.<ref>{{cite web |title=Barneys, Books and Bust-Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize |publisher=BBC}}</ref>

In 1984 Prime Minister [[Indira Gandhi]] brought an action against the book in the British courts, claiming to have been defamed by a single sentence in the penultimate paragraph of chapter 28, in which her son [[Sanjay Gandhi]] was said to have had a hold over his mother by his accusing her of contributing to his father [[Feroze Gandhi]]'s death through her neglect. The case was settled out of court when Salman Rushdie agreed to remove the offending sentence.<ref>This is reported by Salman Rushdie himself in his introduction to the 2006 25th Anniversary special edition, Vintage books, dated 25 December 2005 {{ISBN|978-0-09-957851-2}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
In the late 1990s the [[BBC]] was planning to film a five-part mini-series of the novel with [[Rahul Bose]] in the lead, but due to pressure from the [[Islam in Sri Lanka|Muslim community]] in Sri Lanka, the filming permit was revoked and the project was cancelled.<ref>{{cite book
|title = Step across this line: collected nonfiction 1992–2002
|url = https://archive.org/details/stepacrossthisli00rush
|url-access = registration
|last = Rushdie
|first = Salman
|author-link = Salman Rushdie
|year = 2002
|publisher = Random House
|isbn = 978-0-679-46334-4
|page = [https://archive.org/details/stepacrossthisli00rush/page/77 77]}}</ref> Later in 2003, the novel was adapted for the stage by the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]].<ref name="LE">{{cite web|url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3591|title=Literary Encyclopedia – Midnight's Children|publisher=litencyc.com}}</ref> BBC Radio Four broadcast a dramatic adaptation in 2017 at the 70th anniversary of Indian independence, repeated in five parts in 2021.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0909rfb/episodes/guide | title=BBC Radio 4 - Midnight's Children}}</ref>

Director [[Deepa Mehta]] collaborated with Salman Rushdie on a new version of the story, the film ''[[Midnight's Children (film)|Midnight's Children]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://movies.indiatimes.com/International/Rushdie-visits-Mumbai-for-Midnights-Children-film-/articleshow/5432895.cms|title=Rushdie visits Mumbai for 'Midnight's Children' film|work=The Times of India|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100114151659/http://movies.indiatimes.com/International/Rushdie-visits-Mumbai-for-Midnights-Children-film-/articleshow/5432895.cms|archive-date=14 January 2010|df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-01-13/news-interviews/28121143_1_deepa-mehta-bt-midnight-s-children|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110811030544/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-01-13/news-interviews/28121143_1_deepa-mehta-bt-midnight-s-children|url-status=dead|archive-date=2011-08-11|work=[[The Times of India]]|title=I'm a film buff: Rushdie}}</ref> [[British Indian|British-Indian]] actor [[Satya Bhabha]] played the role of Saleem Sinai<ref>{{cite news|title=Deepa finds Midnight's Children lead|url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-21/news-interviews/28306314_1_salman-rushdie-s-midnight-s-children-saleem-sinai-imran-khan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503103606/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-21/news-interviews/28306314_1_salman-rushdie-s-midnight-s-children-saleem-sinai-imran-khan|url-status=dead|archive-date=3 May 2012|access-date=9 April 2011|newspaper=[[The Times of India]]|date=21 August 2010}}</ref> while other roles were played by [[India|Indian]] actors [[Shriya Saran]], [[Seema Biswas]], [[Shabana Azmi]], [[Anupam Kher]], [[Siddharth Narayan]], [[Rahul Bose]], [[Soha Ali Khan]],<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Dreaming-of-Midnight-s-Children/563437/|title = Dreaming of Midnight's Children|work = The Indian Express}}</ref> [[Shahana Goswami]], Anita Majumdar<ref>[http://www.hindustantimes.com/Irrfan-moves-from-Mira-Nair-to-Deepa-Mehta/H1-Article1-499416.aspx Irrfan moves from Mira Nair to Deepa Mehta] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100304213538/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Irrfan-moves-from-Mira-Nair-to-Deepa-Mehta/H1-Article1-499416.aspx |date=4 March 2010 }}</ref> and [[Darsheel Safary]].<ref>{{cite news
| last =Jha
| first =Subhash K.
| title =Darsheel Safary Darsheel Safary in Midnight's Children
| url =http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-31/news-interviews/29365634_1_darsheel-safary-deepa-mehta-salman-rushdie-s-midnight-s-children
| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20120609143444/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-03-31/news-interviews/29365634_1_darsheel-safary-deepa-mehta-salman-rushdie-s-midnight-s-children
| url-status =dead
| archive-date =9 June 2012
| access-date =20 May 2011
| newspaper =[[The Times of India]]
| date =31 March 2011}}</ref> The film was premiered in September 2012 at the [[Toronto International Film Festival]] (2012-09-09)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2012/midnightschildren |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-05-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120805234818/http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2012/midnightschildren |archive-date=5 August 2012 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> and the [[Vancouver International Film Festival]] (2012-09-27).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.viff.org/node/29209|title=viff.org - Vancouver International Film Centre}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
| last =Nolen
| first =Stephanie
| title =Mehta at midnight
| url =https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/movies/deepa-mehta-films-rushdies-midnights-children/article2021293/singlepage/#articlecontent
| access-date =17 May 2011
| newspaper =[[The Globe and Mail]]
| date =15 May 2011}}</ref> For an academic overview of the adaptations of ''Midnight's Children'', see Mendes and Kuortti (2016).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mendes|first=Ana Cristina|last2=Kuortti|first2=Joel|date=2016-12-21|title=Padma or No Padma: Audience in the Adaptations of Midnight's Children|journal=The Journal of Commonwealth Literature|language=en|volume=52|issue=3|pages=501–518|doi=10.1177/0021989416671171|issn=0021-9894|hdl=10451/29281|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

In June 2018 streaming service [[Netflix]] announced plans to adapt ''Midnight's Children'' as an original Netflix TV series.<ref>Economic Times (29 June 2018). ''[https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/netflix-to-adapt-salman-rushdies-midnights-children-as-original-tv-series/64795903 Netflix to adapt Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children' as original TV series]''.</ref> By the end of 2019, the project had been abandoned. Although showrunner [[Vishal Bhardwaj]] had received support from Rushdie for his script and had done much of the work on casting and scouting locations, after the compromises he had made on his poorly-received 2017 film ''[[Rangoon (2017 Hindi film)|Rangoon]]'' he would not go ahead without agreement for a more ambitious project with a greater special effects budget than Netflix was prepared to agree.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/midnights-children-netflix-vishal-bhardwaj-tv-series_in_5ddf6fa6e4b00149f7298cdd|title=How Vishal Bhardwaj's 'Midnight's Children' Adaptation For Netflix Fell Apart|date=2019-11-28|website=HuffPost India|language=en|access-date=2019-12-29}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|India|Novels}}
*[[List of Midnight's Children characters|List of ''Midnight's Children'' characters]]
*[[Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century|''Le Monde''{{'s}} 100 Books of the Century]]
*[[Mahagujarat movement]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* Batty, Nancy E. ''[https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/33022 The Art of Suspense. Rushdie’s 1001 (Mid-)Nights]''. In: Fletcher, M.D. (ed.) Reading Rushdie. Perspectives on the fiction of Salman Rushdie. Amsterdam, 1994. 69–81.
*Santiago, Juan-Navarro. "[http://www.sjuannavarro.com/files/rushdiefuentes.pdf The Dialogic Imagination of Salman Rushdie and Carlos Fuentes: National Allegories and the Scene of Writing in ''Midnight's Children'' and ''Cristóbal Nonato'']." ''Neohelicon'' 20.2 (1993): 257–312.

==External links==
*[https://thebookerprizes.com/books/midnight’s-children-by Midnight's Children] at [[Booker Prize|thebookerprizes.com]]
*[http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=34006 2009 retrospective review] by [[Jo Walton]]

{{Rushdie}}
{{Man Booker Prize}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Midnight's Children| ]]
[[Category:1981 British novels]]
[[Category:Booker Prize-winning works]]
[[Category:Family saga novels]]
[[Category:British magic realism novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in India]]
[[Category:British novels adapted into films]]
[[Category:Partition of India in fiction]]
[[Category:Historical novels]]
[[Category:Jonathan Cape books]]
[[Category:Postcolonial novels]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Indira Gandhi]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Jawaharlal Nehru]]

Midnight's Children - Revision history

CleanupBot II: Removed empty portal template using script

->Nick Levine: Reverted 1 edit by 162.222.252.30 (talk): Citation for this change?