18 19 Midnight

The author describes how a few bloody months in South Asia during the summer of 1947—the Partition of India, which led to the creation of Pakistan—largely explain the world that troubles us today. 25,000 first printing. Illustrations.

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.

'This book is the first detailed study of Anglo-Indians in literature. Rather than simply dismissing the representation of Anglo-Indians in literary texts as offensive stereotypes, the book identifies the conditions for the emergence of these stereotypes through close readings of key novels, such as Bhowani Junction, Midnight's Children and The Impressionist. It also examines the work of contemporary Anglo-Indian writers such as Allan Sealy and Christopher Cyrill".

While the west has experienced multiple post-war economic, social and political revolutions, India by contrast has had two distinct moments of transformation in the past century: Independence in 1947 and the economic liberalisation that began in 1991. Midnight’s Grandchildren are the offspring of India’s second social and economic revolution. India’s millennial generation, coming of age post-1991, have grown up in a world of opportunity and relative abundance. Many institutions – family, marriage, workplace, and brands – are being disrupted. Great tension exists as a new generation breaks barriers and seeks to find its place. This book captures an important, transformative moment in India’s development. It includes interviews with young Indians who articulate both their optimism and the struggle to find relevant new identities. Managers and recruiters speak about the changes in the workplace and the challenges and opportunities of harnessing India’s so-called demographic dividend. Entrepreneurs, brand owners and marketers discuss the role of brands in cementing identities in a world changing rapidly where loyalty has little meaning. Midnight’s Grandchildren explains for a business audience the significance of the arrival in the workforce of a generation of millennials as both disruptors of the old order and engine of India’s future economic potential. It is of use for professionals and educators wanting to engage this vitally important group of young people.