View source for Midnight's Children

{{short description|1981 novel by Salman Rushdie}}
{{for|the film based on the novel|Midnight's Children (film){{!}}''Midnight's Children'' (film)}}
{{EngvarB|date=December 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015 }}
{{Infobox book|
| name = Midnight's Children
| title_orig = 
| translator = 
| image = 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 the second novel by Indian-British writer [[Salman Rushdie]], published by [[Jonathan Cape]] with cover design by [[Bill Botten]], about India's transition from [[British Raj|British colonial rule]] to [[Indian independence movement|independence]] and [[partition of India|partition]]. It is a [[postcolonial literature|postcolonial]], [[Postmodern literature|postmodern]] and [[magical realist]] story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is [[self-reflexive]].

''Midnight's Children'' sold over one million copies in the UK alone and won the [[Booker Prize]] and [[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]." ''[[The Guardian]]'', 26 July 2008.</ref> It was also awarded the special Booker of Bookers prize in 1993, and the [[The Best of the Booker|Best of the Booker]] in 2008, to celebrate the Booker Prize's 25th and 40th anniversaries.<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><ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100_2.shtml "The Big Read"]. BBC. April 2003. Retrieved 26 October 2012.</ref><ref name=jubilee>{{cite web | url=https://readinggroups.org/news/the-big-jubilee-read-launch |publisher = [[The Reading Agency]]| title = The Big Jubilee Read| access-date= 13 June 2022}}</ref> In 2003 the novel appeared at number 100 on the [[BBC]]'s [[The Big Read]] poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100_2.shtml "BBC – The Big Read"]. BBC. April 2003, Retrieved 17 August 2022</ref>

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

''Midnight's Children'' is a loose allegory for events in 1947 [[British Raj|British Raj India]] and after the [[partition of India]]. The protagonist and narrator of the story is [[Saleem Sinai]], born at the exact moment when India became an independent country. The novel is divided into three books.

The first book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to the fall of [[Colonial India#British Raj|British Colonial India]] and the 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 beautification and slum demolition|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.&nbsp;353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p.&nbsp;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"/>

''Midnight’s Children'' anticipates Rushdie’s later preoccupation with the socio-political responsibility of the writer, as articulated in his essay “Imaginary Homelands” (1991). In this essay, Rushdie reflects on the changing world and calls for politically committed writing that unmasks political shams and legerdemains. Both the novel and the essay express this concern by aiming to present the world differently, in ways that might bring about positive change. As Rushdie writes, “I once took part in a conference on modern writing at New College, Oxford. Various novelists, myself included, were talking earnestly of such matters as the need for new ways of describing the world.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 13</ref> He contends that describing the world is inherently political, and that “redescribing a world is the necessary first step towards changing it.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 14</ref> Therefore, he argues, the act of writing is political because “it is particularly at times when the state takes reality into its own hands, and sets about distorting it, altering the past to fit its present needs, that the making of the alternative realities of art, including the novel of memory, becomes politicized.”<ref>Rushdie, Salman (1992). “Imaginary Homelands," ''Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991'', London: Granta, p. 14</ref> Likewise, in ''Midnight’s Children'', writing becomes a political act as Rushdie offers alternative realities that challenge the politician’s version of truth. Saleem, the protagonist, represents the author-figure who strives to assemble voices from diverse cultural centres to bring about positive change in a disconnected world, symbolized in the 1947 partition of India.

== 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=Salman Rushdie|last1=Eaglestone|first1=Robert|last2=McQuillan|first2=Martin|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2013|series=Contemporary Critical Perspectives|location=London}}</ref>

{{Anchor|Chutnification}}Rushdie also coined the word ''chutnification'' in the book to describe the adoption of Indian elements into the English language or culture.<ref name="Krishnamurthy">{{cite web |last1=Krishnamurthy |first1=Sarala |title=The chutnification of English: An examination of the lexis of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children". |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50232193 |accessdate=3 September 2018 |date=3 September 2018}}</ref><ref name="Crane">{{cite book |last1=Crane |first1=Ralph J. |chapter=The Chutnification of History |title=Inventing India |date=1992 |pages=170–189 |doi=10.1057/9780230380080_8 |language=en|isbn=978-1-349-39062-5 }}</ref> A [[chutney]] is a sauce for a dry base, originating from the Indian subcontinent.

==Reception==
Upon release, the book was generally well-received.<ref>{{Cite news |title=The 100 best novels: No 91 – Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/15/100-best-novels-midnights-children-salman-rushdie- |access-date=22 January 2024 |website=[[The Guardian]]|date=15 June 2015 |last1=McCrum |first1=Robert }}</ref>

''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 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06nnp84|publisher=BBC|date=12 October 2018}}</ref>

According to Rushdie, "...I celebrated the book’s critical reception...The three I have never forgotten were written by Anita Desai in the Washington Post, by Clark Blaise in the New York Times and by Robert Towers in the New York Review of Books."<ref name="latimes.com">{{Cite web |title=Giving birth to 'Midnight's Children'|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jul-28-oe-rushdie28-story.html |access-date=22 January 2024 |website=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=28 July 2008 }}</ref> According to Rushdie, there was "one memorable bad review".<ref name="latimes.com"/> In his words from ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', "The BBC radio program “Kaleidoscope” had devoted a great deal of time to my novel, and given it the works: Indian music to introduce it, a reading, a sympathetic interview with me, and then it was over to their critic ... who unreservedly hated the book. The program’s presenter, Sheridan Morley, kept asking this critic (whose name I’ve forgotten) to find some little thing to praise. “But didn’t you think ... “ “Wouldn’t you at least agree that ... “ and so on. The critic was implacable. No, no, there was nothing he had liked at all. After the magnificent buildup, this negative intransigence was delightfully, bathetically funny."<ref name="latimes.com"/>

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 (a later Rushdie's novel, ''[[The Satanic Verses]]'', published in 1988 caused [[The Satanic Verses controversy|widespread uproar in the Muslim world]]), 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 4]] 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=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Im-a-film-buff-Rushdie/articleshow/5436509.cms|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=live|archive-date=2011-08-11|work=[[The Times of India]]|title=I'm a film buff: Rushdie|date=13 January 2010 }}</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=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Deepa-finds-Midnights-Children-lead/articleshow/6386128.cms|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=live|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]]n 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| date=5 January 2010 }}</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        =https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Darsheel-Safary-in-Midnights-Children/articleshow/7832012.cms
 | 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 =live
 | 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=Midnight's Children &#124; tiff.net |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|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130416023822/http://www.viff.org/node/29209|url-status=dead|archive-date=16 April 2013|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|last1=Mendes|first1=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|s2cid=164759708 |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}}
*[[Jallianwala Bagh massacre]]
*[[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''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219041616/http://www.sjuannavarro.com/files/rushdiefuentes.pdf |date=19 February 2012 }}." ''Neohelicon'' 20.2 (1993): 257–312.

==External links==
*{{wikiquote-inline|Midnight's Children|''Midnight's Children''}}
*[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}}
{{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:Novels about the partition of India]]
[[Category:Historical novels]]
[[Category:Jonathan Cape books]]
[[Category:Postcolonial novels]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Indira Gandhi]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Jawaharlal Nehru]]
[[Category:Postmodern novels]]
[[Category:Novels set in British India]]
[[Category:Novels set in Mumbai]]
[[Category:Novels set in Lahore]]
[[Category:Works about the Emergency (India)]]