SALMAN RUSHDIE (b.1947)
Midnight’s Children. London: Jonathan Cape, 1981.
‘I had no idea that it would change my life’: first British edition, signed by the author and with a fine inscription relating to the novel’s enduring popularity and ‘the real prizes of Literature’. Midnight’s Children tells the tale of Saleem Sinai, a young boy born in India at the exact moment of his nation’s independence. A masterpiece of magical realism and postcolonial literature, it is considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and was selected by the public to win ‘The Best of the Booker’ award in 2008 to mark the 40th anniversary of the prize. In Rushdie’s inscription on the front free endpaper, he writes: ‘my greatest joy is that it still attracts the interest of young readers—who were not born when I was writing it or when it came out. And that in India it is still a book that inspires in many readers that rarest of emotions: love. These are the real prizes of Literature, and they are not awarded by juries, but by Time.’

Octavo. Original burgundy quarter cloth, silver lettering to spine, the author’s initials in silver to upper board, pictorial dust jacket with original Booker McConnell Prize Winner wrap-around band (usual light sunning to spine).

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