Midnight’s children and beyond: An in-depth exploration of the politics of magical realism in Salman Rushdie’s fiction

Abstract

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) stands as a seminal work in postcolonial literature and a landmark in the fusion of magical realism with historical fiction. This paper explores how Rushdie’s narrative reconstructs the Indian national story through a fragmented, hallucinatory, and self-reflexive lens. The novel’s protagonist, Saleem Sinai, born at the precise moment of India’s independence, becomes both a symbol and a victim of the nation’s fractured identity. Through the interplay of history and myth, private memory and collective trauma, Rushdie redefines postcolonial storytelling. This study examines the techniques of magical realism, narrative structure, and thematic depth to show how Midnight’s Children articulates a new way of imagining the nation—one rooted in multiplicity, hybridity, and dissent against totalizing histories.