Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"

Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Author: Neil ten Kortenaar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773526153
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
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.

Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"

Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Author: Neil ten Kortenaar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773526153
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
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.

Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"

Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie's Author: Neil ten Kortenaar
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773526211
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
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's 'Midnight's Children'.

Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children PDF Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307367754
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Winner of the Booker prize and twice winner of the Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children is "one of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this generation" (New York Review of Books). Reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication--with a new introduction from the author--Salman Rushdie's widely acclaimed novel is a masterpiece in literature. Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts. This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Midnight’s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children PDF Author: Reena Mitra
Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist
ISBN: 9788126906888
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Salman Rushdie S Midnight S Children, Ever Since Its Publication In 1980, Has Been Considered An Ingenious Piece Of Literary Art And A Trendsetter In The Field Of Indian Fiction In English. The Stupendous Success Of This Novel Broke All Previous Records And Rushdie Was Hailed As One Who Engendered A Whole New Generation Of Fiction Writers That Embraced Magical Realism As A Mode For The Depiction Of History. The Variant Mode Of The Portrayal Of Historical Reality That Rushdie Adopts In Midnight S Children Is Characteristically His Own And His Fantasizing Of Facts In This Novel Inspired A Host Of Other Writers To Offer, In Their Respective Works, Their Own Blends Of Fact And Fiction.Midnight S Children Is A Multi-Faceted Novel Which Lends Itself To Analysis From Various Angles And Perspectives. Be It From The Point Of View Of Structure Or Content, The Work Yields A Richness That Has Been Variously Explored By The Scholars Who Have Contributed To This Anthology Of Essays On It.

A Study Guide for Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

A Study Guide for Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children PDF Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
ISBN: 1410336271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
A Study Guide for Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

Imaginary Homelands

Imaginary Homelands PDF Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140140360
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
“Read every page of this book; better still, re-read them. The invocation means no hardship, since every true reader must surely be captivated by Rushdie’s masterful invention and ease, the flow of wit and insight and passion. How literature of the highest order can serve the interests of our common humanity is freshly illustrated here: a defence of his past, a promise for the future, and a surrender to nobody or nothing whatever except his own all-powerful imagination.”-Michael Foot, Observer Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands is an important record of one writer’s intellectual and personal odyssey. The seventy essays collected here, written over the last ten years, cover an astonishing range of subjects –the literature of the received masters and of Rushdie’s contemporaries; the politics of colonialism and the ironies of culture; film, politicians, the Labour Party, religious fundamentalism in America, racial prejudice; and the preciousness of the imagination and of free expression. For this paperback edition, the author has written a new essay to mark the third anniversary of the fatwa.

Nabokov, Rushdie, and the Transnational Imagination

Nabokov, Rushdie, and the Transnational Imagination PDF Author: R. Trousdale
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230106889
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Using Vladimir Nabokov and Salman Rushdie's work, this study argues that transnational fiction refuses the simple oppositions of postcolonial theory and suggests the possibility of an inclusive global literature.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children PDF Author: Salman Rushdie
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0307538389
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
The original stage adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, winner of the 1993 Booker of Bookers, the best book to win the Booker Prize in its first twenty-five years. In the moments of upheaval that surround the stroke of midnight on August 14--15, 1947, the day India proclaimed its independence from Great Britain, 1,001 children are born--each of whom is gifted with supernatural powers. Midnight’s Children focuses on the fates of two of them--the illegitimate son of a poor Hindu woman and the male heir of a wealthy Muslim family--who become inextricably linked when a midwife switches the boys at birth. An allegory of modern India, Midnight’s Children is a family saga set against the volatile events of the thirty years following the country’s independence--the partitioning of India and Pakistan, the rule of Indira Gandhi, the onset of violence and war, and the imposition of martial law. It is a magical and haunting tale, of fragmentation and of the struggle for identity and belonging that links personal life with national history. In collaboration with Simon Reade, Tim Supple and the Royal Shakespeare Society, Salman Rushdie has adapted his masterpiece for the stage.

The Disappointed Bridge

The Disappointed Bridge PDF Author: Richard Pine
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443860980
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
This original study is the first major critical appraisal of Ireland’s post-colonial experience in relation to that of other emergent nations. The parallels between Ireland, India, Latin America, Africa and Europe establish bridges in literary and musical contexts which offer a unique insight into independence and freedom, and the ways in which they are articulated by emergent nations. They explore the master-servant relationship, the functions of narrative, and the concepts of nationalism, map-making, exile, schizophrenia, hybridity, magical realism and disillusion. The author offers many incisive answers to the question: What happens to an emerging nation after it has emerged?

The Quality of Life

The Quality of Life PDF Author: Richard Pine
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527570754
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
These essays represent a selection of 40 years’ commentary on the political dimensions of cultural life. They address the entire spectrum of culture, from theories of international communication to the provision of cultural and leisure facilities at local level. As a former consultant to the Council of Europe, the author has developed a penetrating insight into the decision-making process between local authorities and citizens’ groups, which is discussed in two seminal papers from the 1980s which pioneered the concept of Cultural Democracy. In addition, the book’s close readings of novels and plays by Irish and Greek writers explore the way that all writing and forms of self-expression have a political message and repercussions.