Midnight's Children
A Novel
Readers rate it 4.0 (267 on Hardcover)
620 pages · Released Aug 26, 2010 · Random House
Content report card
Midnight's Children parent’s guide: what’s inside
LGBTQ+ themes
What it offers
Educational value
A note for parents
Midnight's Children is a complex literary novel spanning India's independence and partition, rich with magical realism and historical detail but dealing with mature themes including violence, loss, and moral ambiguity. The narrative is intricate and allusive, requiring significant reading maturity; it is not a children's book despite its categorization tags. Younger teens may struggle with both the length and density, while older teens and adults will find substantial intellectual and artistic rewards.
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From the publisher
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 be... 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 fortieth 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. Forty 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.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- A mix driven
- historical-fiction
- long-read
- literary-fiction
- Diverse Characters
- Unloveable Characters
- Character driven
- Adventurous
- challenging
- funny
- dark
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ISBN 9780307744111 · Random House