#24 in Literary fiction
Midnight's Children
- 580
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- Booker Prize
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
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About the book
Midnight's Children is the second novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published in 1981 by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. In the way it interweaves a personal with a national biography it has similarities to Günter Grass's The Tin Drum.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 305 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 62% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Literary fiction average of 7.9. That is how 8.0 comes out. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 38 | 13% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 267 | 88% |
Reader voices
The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).
“Rushdie's 1981 acclaimed book follows the birth of the Indian Subcontinent through the means of “Midnight's Children”, a title given to kids born on the day of India's independence from the British rule. The narrator, Saleem Sinai, is one such kid born along with India, at the stroke of midnight on 15th August, 1947. Saleem narrates his infancy, childhood & adulthood drawing parallels to Indian subcontinent. The first 2 sections are well-paced albeit a bit lengthy but the last section concerning the Indian emergency period feels like a drag.”
“Some of Rushdie's writing is exceptional, and I was really enjoying it for the first three hundred pages or so, but then tedium started setting in, by which point there were still over a hundred pages left. Given the hype (voted the greatest Booker Prize winner of all time), I'm not sure what I'm missing here. More a book to be respected and admired for its author's craft rather than loved as a story”
Frequently asked
What is Midnight's Children rated?
8.0 out of 10, from 305 reader ratings across 2 independent sources.
Is Midnight's Children worth reading?
Readers give it 8.0/10 from 305 ratings, which puts it ahead of 51 % of the Literary fiction shelf.
How long does it take to read Midnight's Children?
About 11 hours at an average reading pace — 580 pages.
Where does Midnight's Children rank?
#24 in Literary fiction on the current snapshot.
How long is Midnight's Children?
It has 580 pages — longer than 74% of the ranked books in Literary fiction.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Literary fiction — with scores between 8.0 and 8.1, closest to this book.
