MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie (hier online bestellen)
The story:
The book is surrealist fiction that deals with the history of India from 1910 to the declaration of the
emergency in 1976 through the eyes (and nose) of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of Midnight August 15, 1947.
Midnight's Children, like most of Rushdie's writing, does have political overtones, yet the fog of larger
events is never permitted to detract from the more personal experiences of all the multi-faceted characters
in the novel. This is perhaps why this form of "magical realism" is so effective in a novel that is at once
the history of a sub-continent, the story of a boy's coming to age, the saga of a family and the off-key
liberation-song of a people.
Extract from book:
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems -
but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible. Suppose yourself in a large
cinema, sitting at first in the back row, and gradually moving up, row by row, until your nose is almost
pressed against the screen. Gradually the stars' faces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny details assume
grotesque proportions; the illusion dissolves - or rather, it becomes clear that the illusion itself is
reality.
About the author:
Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 19 June 1947. He went to school in Bombay and at Rugby in
England, and read History at King's College, Cambridge, where he joined the Cambridge Footlights theatre
company. After graduating, he lived with his family who had moved to Pakistan in 1964, and worked briefly
in television before returning to England, beginning work as a copywriter for an advertising agency.
His first novel, Grimus, was published in 1975.
His second novel, the acclaimed Midnight's Children, was published in 1981.
Rushdie's third novel, Shame (1983), which many critics saw as an allegory of the political situation in
Pakistan, won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
The publication in 1988 of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, lead to accusations of blasphemy against
Islam and demonstrations by Islamist groups in India and Pakistan.
Then there followed a book of essays entitled Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (1991);
East, West (1994), a book of short stories; and a novel, The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), the history of the
wealthy Zogoiby family told through the story of Moraes Zogoiby, a young man from Bombay descended from
Sultan Muhammad XI, the last Muslim ruler of Andalucía.
The subjects in his new book, Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992-2002 (2002), range from
popular culture and football to twentieth-century literature and politics. Salman Rushdie is also co-author
of the stage adaptation of Midnight's Children, premiered by the Royal
Shakespeare Company in 2002.
Buchdaten:
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
Sprache: Englisch
Broschiert - 462 Seiten - Vintage
Erscheinungsdatum: 25. Mai 1995
ISBN: 0099578514
Preis: € 13,50
More works from the same author:
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