"India has produced a great novelist... a master of perpetual storytelling" V. S. Pritchett, New Yorker

Born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, at the precise moment of India's independence, the infant Saleem Sinai is celebrated in the press and welcomed by Prime Minister Nehru himself. But this coincidence of birth has consequences Saleem is not prepared for: telepathic powers that connect him with 1.000 other 'midnight children' -all born in the initial hour of India's independence- and an uncanny sense of smell that allows him to sniff out dangers others cannot perceive. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's biography is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.

"One of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" New York Reivew of Books

"Huge, vital, engrossing... in all senses a fantastic book" Sunday Times

"Amagnificent book and Salman Rushdie is a major novelist" Observer

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