Midnight's Children (Further Reading)

Further Reading

• Barnaby, Edward, "Airbrushed History: Photography, Realism, and Rushdie's Midnight's Children," in Mosaic, March 2005, pp. 1-16.

  The author makes the point that this novel, rather than being a work of "magical realism," is actually based on a series of imaginary photographs.

• Booker, M. Keith, "Salman Rushdie: The Development of a Literary Reputation," in Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie, edited by M. Keith Booker, G. K. Hall, 1999, pp. 1-15.

  Booker takes a close look at this novel's critical role in making Rushdie the literary giant he was at the end of the twentieth century.

• Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A., Salman Rushdie, St. Martin's Press, 1998.

  In the Midnight's Children chapter of this installment of St. Martin's Modern Writers series, Goonetilleke examines how Rushdie, already a good writer, blossomed by turning to his homeland as his subject matter.

• Hassumani, Sabrina, "Midnight's Children," in Salman Rushdie: A Postmodern Reading of His Major Works, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002, pp. 31-46.

  As the title of Hassumani's book implies, this interpretation uses postmodernism to give some understanding to the novel, even though some critics find such a style of interpretation incomplete.

• Heffernan, Teresa, "Apocalyptic Narratives: The Nation in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children," in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 26, No. 4, Winter 2000, pp. 470-91.

  Heffernan argues against the idea that this novel is nationalistic, instead making the point that it does just the opposite, that Rushdie rejects the idea of the modern nation.

• Kortenaar, Neil Ten, "Women," in Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children," McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004, pp. 109-27.

  A subject too frequently overlooked is the ways that Rushdie uses women in this novel, from Indira Gandhi to Parvati to Evie Burns to Padma. Kortenaar considers them as a group.

• ―――――――, "Salman Rushdie's Magic Realism and Return of Inescapable Romance," in University of Toronto Quarterly, Summer 2002, pp. 765-85.

  This article examines the concept of magical realism in this novel and the various interpretations of it that apply.