This book came highly recommended from a friend of mine, but I was reluctant to read it as other people claim that Salman Rushdie is not an easy author to read. Midnight's Children won the "Booker of Booker" prize in 1993 as well as a number of other book prizes.
Midnight's Children is divided in to three "books" and it follows the life of Saleem Sinai - a telepath with an extraordinary nose - who was born at midnight at the exact moment that India gained Independence from the British. The story follows Saleem's life as well as the turmoil within India once it gained Independence.
Saleem's telepathy allows him to communicate with the other children born around the midnight of India's independence. The children meet inside Saleem's head for midnight conferences. Each child has his or her own power and the ones born closest to midnight are the most powerful. According to wikipedia, these midnight children represent the linguistic, cultural, religious and political differences of the people in India at that time, and through Saleem's telepathy he is able to bring them together.
Saleem's story follows a number of different conflicts in India and concludes with Saleem more or less losing everything as a result of Indira Ghandi's cleansing and sterilisation campaign. Once everything is lost, Saleem shares his memoir with his wife-to-be, Padma , and thus comes the novel "Midnight's Children", a story which has magic, tragedy, romance, war and huge political changes.
The novel is beautifully written and I enjoyed reading it, but I think I would have appreciated it more if I was better versed in the political history of the time. That being said, I don't think that it was a difficult novel to read
Another interesting book that I read (a long time ago) about the Indira Ghandi period in India is called "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry.
I totally loved this book. I still remember reading it!
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