Born on 19 June 1947, two months before India, the country of his birth, achieved her independence from British Rule, Salman Rushdie is, and yet is not quite, one of India’s Midnight’s Children. The newly installed Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave voice to the historical moment when he evoked the “tryst India had made with destiny” which would be “redeem[ed] [….] At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps”, allowing India to “awake to life and freedom”. Anglophone Indian Literature had to wait another thirty-four years for a writer such as Salman Rushdie to write
Midnight’s Children(1981), a novel with which Rushdie was to make his stupendous breakthrough as an international writer.
Based in England at the time of writing Midnight’s
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Citation: Ghosh-Schellhorn, Martina, Catherine Pesso-Miquel. "Salman Rushdie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 May 2003; last revised 22 January 2024. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3889, accessed 08 July 2025.]
