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
Knighthood of Salman Rushdie faces) gathered outside Regent's Park mosque denouncing Rushdie's knighthood, "noisily renewing calls for his death", and burning a poster of the British flag. They addressed worshippers leaving Friday services and soon had attracted a crowd of over 100 people. The demonstrators chanted "Death to Rushdie! Death to the queen!" and had signs with slogans such as "Salman Rushdie should be punished, not praised." Protest organiser Anjem Choudray (an ex-head of the British wing of the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun and helped co-ordinate the protests over the Jyllands-Posten cartoons) said "This knighthood is just another example of Tony Blair and his