Midnight's Children Midnight's Children Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by British Indian author Salman Rushdie. It deals with India's transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. "Midnight's Children" won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time
Salman Rushdie Zia-ul-Haq. "Shame" won France's "Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger" (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Kashmiri diaspora. Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called "The Jaguar Smile". This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments. His most controversial work, "The Satanic Verses", was published in 1988 (see section