Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children Literature and History Reflections

The film charts the story of Saleem Sinai, a young man born precisely at the stroke of midnight on Aug. 14, 1947 — the moment India and Pakistan came into the world, dividing a former colony into two nations free from British rule. In Rushdie's words, Saleem Sinai's life is "handcuffed to history"; and the novel explores his tumultuous journey across decades as characters' lives tumble and rise alongside their nations. "That is one of the great classic subjects of literature," Rushdie notes. "What does history do to the individual, and what can the individual do to history? Can we change the world we live in, or are we simply tossed and turned on the storms of history?"