Midnight's Children (Modern Library 100 Best Novels) - Softcover

Rushdie, Salman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812976533 ISBN 13: 9780812976533

Publisher: Random House Trade, 2006

Synopsis

The iconic masterpiece of India that introduced the world to "a glittering novelist--one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling" (The New Yorker)

WINNER OF THE BEST OF THE BOOKERS - SOON TO BE A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time - The twenty-fifth anniversary edition, featuring a new introduction by the author

Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India's independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India's 1,000 other "midnight's children," all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.

This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people-a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight's Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

About this title

Review

Before Salman Rushdie had that problem with a certain religious-political figure with a serious need to chill out, he'd already shown he was an important literary force. Quite simply, Midnight's Children is amazing--fun, beautiful, erudite, both fairy tale and political narrative told through a supernatural narrator who is caught between different worlds. Though it's a big book, with big themes of India's nationhood and of ethnic and personal identity, it's far from a dry history lesson. Rushdie tells the story in his own brand of magical realism, with a prose of lyrical, transcendent goofiness.

Review

"Extraordinary . . . one of the most important [novels] to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation."
-The New York Review of Books

"The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. . . . Midnight's Children sounds like a continent finding its voice."
-The New York Times

"In Salman Rushdie, India has produced a glittering novelist- one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling."
-The New Yorker

"A marvelous epic . . . Rushdie's prose snaps into playback and flash-forward . . . stopping on images, vistas, and characters of unforgettable presence. Their range is as rich as India herself."
-Newsweek

"Burgeons with life, with exuberance and fantasy . . . Rushdie is a writer of courage, impressive strength, and sheer stylistic brilliance."
-The Washington Post Book World

"Pure story-an ebullient, wildly clowning, satirical, descriptively witty charge of energy."
-Chicago Sun-Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0812976533
• ISBN 13: 9780812976533
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 560