Edited by Joel Kuortti, a specialist in Salman Rushdie’s works and post-colonial and transcultural writing, this volume presents a variety of new essays on Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Midnight’s Children marked a change in global literary scene as it inaugurated a heightened interest in writings from the formerly colonized countries. There had been post-colonial writings before but in its richness, full with magical realistic depiction and historiographical narration, Rushdie’s novel became a trendsetter. Since its publication in 1981, Midnight’s Children has been translated into several languages and, in 2012, adapted into a film.

The essays in the volume discuss topics such as ethics, nationalism, translation, and the culture of globalization. Rounding out the volume is a bibliography of other important critical sources for readers seeking to study the novel and its themes further.