Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie · first published 1981
60% recommend33% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Long, richly written novel of post-colonial India, praised for its verbal wizardry, vivid detail, and fantasy-like imagination. Suits readers who want challenging literary fiction that is still enjoyable.
Common criticism: Some find the style pretentious or hard to get into
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by author Salman Rushdie. It portrays India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and the partition of India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature. The story is told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, and is set in the context of actual historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive. Midnight's Children won both the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Recommended by 9 · mentioned by 189 recommend · 18 mention9 recommend · 189 recommend
2010–2023Cold Comfort Farm
Stella Gibbons
Recommended by 1 · mentioned by 41 recommend · 4 mention1 recommend · 41 recommend
2018–2026The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
Recommended by 6 · mentioned by 106 recommend · 10 mention6 recommend · 106 recommend
2010–2024Atonement
Ian McEwan
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 62 recommend · 6 mention2 recommend · 62 recommend
2010–2025The Satanic Verses
Salman Rushdie
Recommended by 12 · mentioned by 4612 recommend · 46 mention12 recommend · 4612 recommend
The Tin Drum
Gunter Grass
Recommended by 3 · mentioned by 83 recommend · 8 mention3 recommend · 83 recommend
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie Ulysses - James Joyce (keep going back to it - to understand it better)
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗…Finn). From that list, I would recommend the following only if I knew the person's tastes better: (Cervantes - Don Quixote), (Dostoevsky - The Idiot), (Kafka - The Trial), (Orwell - 1984), (Rushdie - Midnight's Children) There are many other books I love that aren't on that list, but whether they would float your boat is anybody's guess. Personally I would read a shopping list written by Per Olov Enquist, but he seems…
on “Ask HN: classic literature recommendations?” ↗…Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut 1984 by George Orwell To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie My Antonia by Willa Cather (1918) On the Road by Jack Kerouac The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson Mccullers The Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934) Their Eyes Were Watching…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in 2013” ↗Both Grimus and Midnight's Children are great. The Satanic Verses is worth a read but not before the first two IMO.
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗…twice) - Flatland by Edwin Abbot Abbot --> read multiple times to understand whats going on in different levels - Some PG Wodehouse stuff because it ages well (specifically the bibilical references) - Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie which is absolute verbal wizardry - Treasure Island by RLS which is a kids favorite for adventurism
on “Ask HN: Which books have you read more than once?” ↗I always look forward to anything Salman Rushdie writes. Midnight's Children introduced me to reading and writing back in the day and literally changed my life.
on “In ‘Languages of Truth,’ Salman Rushdie Defends the Extraordinary” ↗Nice list, I was reading it in anxiety to the very and, yes, rank number 100 "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. A great, underappreciated book that deserves Nobel Prize.
on “Albert Camus” ↗Unless you are specifically interested in the history of the response to the Satanic Verses and what it means about world society, I would recommend 'Midnight's Children' as a better book, and a better example of what is interesting about Salman Rushdie's work.
A lot of my absolutely favorite books are rated below 4.0. A few examples: 1. White Noise at 3.86 2. Catch-22 at 3.99 3. Dhalgren at 3.77 4. At Swim-Two-Birds at 3.86 5. Midnight's Children at 3.98 6. Омон Ра at 3.90 7. Never Let Me Go at 3.84 Drawing the line at 4 rules out some of the most interesting books. In my experience, you really have to fall below 3.5 to get consistently bad…
on “The murky math of the New York Times bestsellers list” ↗> At the height of it I thought I would eventually learn to smell the future. Oddly enough, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children covers this exact feeling almost in the same way as you describe. If you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend it - it’s a long read but also very enojoyable.
on “Deaf girl is cured in world first gene therapy trial” ↗I haven't read Evaristo but I will add Salman Rushdie to your list. Particularly, Midnight's Children.
on “Books I Loved Reading in 2024” ↗…Javascript. The good parts. Visual quick start guide to SQL. ^These three are probably the most important books I ever read, they probably changed the trajectory of my life more than any others on the list. Midnight's Children. Rushdie Roberts Rules of Order. The four loves Love languages A once popular anti catholic tract called "The Trail of Blood". Basically there is truth, falsehood, history, emotion and understanding…
on “Ask HN: Life Changing Books?” ↗…Eden * Moby Dick * Shakespeare's collected works * Bible, Koran, etc - keep as many sacred tomes as you can * Plato's Republic, maybe some other philosophy classics like Thus Spoke Zarathustra * Midnight's Children (how old does it have to be to be a classic?) * Paradise Lost, Iliad, Odyssey * The God of Small Things
on “Ask HN: You've got $300 to fill an empty library. What do you choose?” ↗This is something I’ve been interested in for ages. I recently went to India and the first thing I Googled was “best books set in India” (answers: Shantaram, A Fine Balance, Midnight’s Children, God of Small Things). So definitely something I would use. Some comments from me: 1. Needs to be much bigger. You currently have four books recommended for London, both fiction and non-fiction. But…
on “Show HN: Destination Reads – Find the best books set in cities around the world” ↗…the time invested is another question entirely. ("No", I'm afraid, is the answer. There are better books along the same lines that are also challenging but less so. I recommend 100 Years of Solitude, Midnight's Children, or Tin Drum). Avoid Ulysses. There's such bad, lame "philosophy of math" in there it really turned me off, made it seem like the whole book is just Joyce showing off how smart he thinks he is.
on “The Most Abandoned Books on GoodReads (2019)” ↗