Midnight's Children is the second novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published 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 first book begins with the story of the Sinai family, particularly with events leading up to the fall of British Colonial India and the partition.

Saleem acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning of their gifts.

For a time Saleem is held as a political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi's over-reach during the Emergency as well as a personal lust for power bordering on godhood.

The technique of magical realism finds liberal expression throughout the novel and is crucial to constructing the parallel to the country's history.

[7] The events in the book also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in Arabian Nights (consider the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (p. 353), or his journey in the 'basket of invisibility' (p. 383))."

"[7] "'Once upon a time,' Saleem muses, 'there were Radha and Krishna, and Rama and Sita, and Laila and Majnun; also (because we are not unaffected by the West) Romeo and Juliet, and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn' (259)."

The postcolonial experience could not be expressed by a Western or Eastern, public or private, polarity or unity, any more than any single political party could represent all the people of the nation.

[9][10][11][12] Rushdie also coined the word chutnification in the book to describe the adoption of Indian elements into the English language or culture.

[18] In the late 1990s the BBC was planning to film a five-part mini-series of the novel with Rahul Bose in the lead, but due to pressure from the Muslim community in Sri Lanka (a later Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988 caused widespread uproar in the Muslim world), the filming permit was revoked and the project was cancelled.

[23][24] British-Indian actor Satya Bhabha played the role of Saleem Sinai[25] while other roles were played by Indian actors Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Siddharth Narayan, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan,[26] Shahana Goswami, Anita Majumdar[27] and Darsheel Safary.

Although showrunner Vishal Bhardwaj had received support from Rushdie for his script and had done much of the work on casting and scouting locations, after the compromises he had made on his poorly-received 2017 film Rangoon he would not go ahead without agreement for a more ambitious project with a greater special effects budget than Netflix was prepared to agree.