A police officer in limbo goes on a cross-country search for his soul, but encounters some mighty obstacles along the way.

Neil ten Kortenaar examines the key critical concepts associated with contemporary postcolonial theory, including hybridity, mimicry, national allegory, and cosmopolitanism, through a close reading of Salman Rushdie'sMidnight's Children. He offers successive readings of Rushdie's novel - first as an allegory of history, then as a Bildungsroman and psychological study of the burgeoning of a national consciousness, and, finally, as a representation of the nation.He shows that the hybridity of Rushdie's fictional India is not created by different elements combining to form a single whole but rather by the relations among the elements: Rushdie's India is more self-conscious than are communal identities based on langua it is haunted by a dark twin called Pakistan; it is a nation in the way England is a nation, but is imagined against Engl it mistrusts the openness of Tagore's Hindu India; and it is at once cosmopolitan and a particular subjective location. The citizen in turn is imagined in terms of the nation. Saleem Sinai's heroic identification of himself with the state is beaten out of him until at the end he sees himself as the Common Man at the mercy of the state.Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Midnight Childrenexplains the many historical and cultural references in a book that makes many demands on non-Indian readers and will be of interest to all who teach postcolonial and postmodern literature and to their students, graduate and undergraduate. Moreover, as an original argument about how nation-states are imagined and how national consciousness is formed in the citizen, it will be of interest to scholars in the area of cultural studies and postcolonial theory, whether in history, literature, cultural studies, or South Asian studies.

After decades of internecine warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the Warlock King of the Hiroth. There is peace--but it has been exacted at a terrible price: a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst, deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether, eager to fulfill its long-prophesized renaissance as an Empire reborn, has enslved all its less-civilized neighbors with rapacious hunger. All, that is, save one--the Tiste Edur. And it must be only a matter of time before they too fall--either beneath the suffocating weight of gold, or by slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so destiny has decreed. Yet as the two sides gather for a pivotal treaty neither truly wants, ancient forces are awakening. For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of a far more profound, primal battle--a confrontation with the still-raw wound of an old betrayal and the craving for revenge at its seething heart. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Many non-Indian readers find the historical and cultural references in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children demanding. In his close reading of the novel, Neil ten Kortenaar offers post-colonial literary strategies for understanding Midnight's Children that also challenge some of the prevailing interpretations of the novel. Using hybridity, mimicry, national allegory, and cosmopolitanism, all key critical concepts of postcolonial theory, ten Kortenaar reads Midnight's Children as an allegory of history, as a Bildungsroman and psychological study of a burgeoning national consciousness, and as a representation of the nation. He shows that the hybridity of Rushdie's fictional India is not created by different elements forming a whole but by the relationship among them. Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children also makes an original argument about how nation-states are imagined and how national consciousness is formed in the citizen. The protagonist, Saleem Sinai, heroically identifies himself with the state, but this identification is beaten out of him until, in the end, he sees himself as the Common Man at the mercy of the state. Ten Kortenaar reveals Rushdie's India to be more self-conscious than many communal identities based on language: it is an India haunted by a dark twin called Pakistan; a nation in the way England is a nation but imagined against England. Mistrusting the openness of Tagore's Hindu India, it is both cosmopolitan and a specific subjective location.

1. Salman Rushdie Life, Works and Achievements 2. A Detailed Chapterwise Critical Analysis 3. Major Themes and Issues 4. Art of Characterization 5. Major Characters 6. Minor Characters 7. Narrative Techniques 8. Style, Trope and Symbol 9. Critical Reception of Midnight's Children 10. Some Model Questions Select Bibliography Index

A few bloody months in South Asia during the summer of 1947 explain the world that troubles us today.

Ronald Kitchen was 21, on his way to buy milk for his four-year-old, when he was picked up by the Chicago police, brutally tortured, and coerced to confess to five counts of heinous murder. He spent 22 years in prison, 13 of those on death row. Kitchen was only one of the many victims of Jon Burge and his notorious Midnight Crew—118 others have come forward so far. Kitchen cofounded the Death Row 10 from his maximum security cellblock and fought together with those men to expose the grave injustices that led to their wrongful convictions. The Death Row 10 appeared on nationwide media and, with the help of lawyers and activists outside, were instrumental in turning the tide against the death penalty in Illinois. Kitchen was finally exonerated in 2013 and filed a high profile lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department, Jon Burge, Mayor Richard Daley, and the Cook County state's attorney. Largely absent from the current social justice narratives are the testimonies of the victims themselves. Kitchen is a survivor who has turned his suffering into a powerful public cause. The atrocities of the Midnight Crew have been brought to light through Kitchen's work and are now part of the discussion as the nation engages in an unprecedented conversation about racism.

Winner of the Booker prize and twice winner of the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is "one of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" (New York Review of Books). Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication--with a new introduction from the author--Salman Rushdie's widely acclaimed novel is a masterpiece in literature. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

Savannah's Midnight Hour argues that Savannah's development is best understood within the larger history of municipal finance, public policy, and judicial readjustment in an urbanizing nation. In providing such context, Lisa Denmark adds constructive complexity to the conventional Old South/New South dichotomous narrative, in which the politics of slavery, secession, Civil War, and Reconstruction dominate the analysis of economic development. Denmark shows us that Savannah's fiscal experience in the antebellum and postbellum years, while exhibiting some distinctively southern characteristics, also echoes a larger national experience. Her broad account of municipal decision making about improvement investment throughout the nineteenth century offers a more nuanced look at the continuity and change of policies in this pivotal urban setting. Beginning in the 1820s and continuing into the 1870s, Savannah's resourceful government leaders acted enthusiastically and aggressively to establish transportation links and to construct a modern infrastructure. Taking the long view of financial risk, the city/municipal government invested in an ever-widening array of projects--canals, railroads, harbor improvement, drainage-- because of their potential to stimulate the city's economy. Denmark examines how this ideology of over-optimistic risk-taking, rooted firmly in the antebellum period, persisted after the Civil War and eventually brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy. The struggle to strike the right balance between using public policy and public money to promote economic development while, at the same time, trying to maintain a sound fiscal footing is a question governments still struggle with today.

Salman Rushdie S Midnight S Children, Ever Since Its Publication In 1980, Has Been Considered An Ingenious Piece Of Literary Art And A Trendsetter In The Field Of Indian Fiction In English. The Stupendous Success Of This Novel Broke All Previous Records And Rushdie Was Hailed As One Who Engendered A Whole New Generation Of Fiction Writers That Embraced Magical Realism As A Mode For The Depiction Of History. The Variant Mode Of The Portrayal Of Historical Reality That Rushdie Adopts In Midnight S Children Is Characteristically His Own And His Fantasizing Of Facts In This Novel Inspired A Host Of Other Writers To Offer, In Their Respective Works, Their Own Blends Of Fact And Fiction.Midnight S Children Is A Multi-Faceted Novel Which Lends Itself To Analysis From Various Angles And Perspectives. Be It From The Point Of View Of Structure Or Content, The Work Yields A Richness That Has Been Variously Explored By The Scholars Who Have Contributed To This Anthology Of Essays On It.