Midnight's Children

In the moments of upheaval that surround the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the day India proclaimed its independence from Great Britain, one thousand and one children are born - each of whom, though forced to struggle through hardships faced by citizens of a newly independent country, is gifted with supernatural powers. Midnight's Children focuses on the fates of two of these children - the illegitimate son of a poor Hindu woman and the male heir of a wealthy Muslim family - who become inextricably linked when a midwife switches the two boys at birth. An allegory of modern India, Midnight's Children is a family saga set against the volatile events in the thirty years following the country's independence - the partitioning of India and Pakistan, the rule of Indira Gandhi, the onset of violence and war, and the imposition of martial law. It is a magical and haunting tale of both fragmentation and the struggle for identity that links personal life with national history.