Saleem Sinai a nation's history. His life and his experiences in the novel are inseparable from the events taking place around him and so he truly becomes a child of history. A "Times of India" review calls Saleem the most loved of Rushdie's many characters despite, or perhaps because of, his being "the snot-nosed, cucumber-nosed know-all narrator of "Midnight’s Children", whose life swings between exultation and suffering, for he has been 'handcuffed to history', a coupling determined by his time of birth, midnight on August 15, 1947, when 'clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting'". India's national newspaper "The Hindu" noted the success
Salman Rushdie to live under police protection for several years. On 7 March 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy. When, on BBC Radio 4, he was asked for a response to the threat, Rushdie said, "Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book," and 'I'm very sad that it should have happened. It's not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts out of context.' Later, he wrote that he was "proud,