Saleem Sinai of the novel and the significance of its main character, calling "Midnight's Children" "an extraordinary literary jewel (it was awarded the Booker of Bookers in 1993, and a host of other prizes), focusing on the fates of two children that are inextricably linked by the hour of their birth, literally 'handcuffed to history'". Sinai is the product of extra-marital intercourse and is raised by a Muslim family after being exchanged at birth by his nurse, Mary Pereira. Over the course of the novel he goes from riches to rags. He has telepathic and other supernatural powers that are part of
Salman Rushdie Rushdie, a Cambridge-educated lawyer-turned-businessman, and Negin Bhatt, a teacher. Anis Rushdie was let go from the Indian Civil Services (ICS) after it emerged that the birth certificate submitted by him had changes to make him appear younger than he was. Rushdie has three sisters. He wrote in his 2012 memoir that his father adopted the name Rushdie in honour of Averroes (Ibn Rushd). He was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay, Rugby School in Warwickshire, and King's College, University of Cambridge, where he read history. Rushdie worked as a copywriter for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather,