Saleem Sinai

Saleem Sinai is the protagonist of the Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. His life is closely intertwined with the events that take place in his homeland on the South Asia of pre- and post-colonial India, Pakistan and newly liberated Bangladesh (East Bengal). He is born at the moment in time when India and Pakistan emerge from British rule and lives during the new tumultuous struggles that engulf the new nations following August 15, 1947. Sinai embodies these physical struggles and rifts during, and serves as a metaphor for, the spiritual, religious, political and intellectual traumas of the young nations.

Literary significance

Rushdie's character has been much discussed in literary circles.Midnight's Children is considered by many to be the author's masterwork and it has inspired a generation of writers on the subcontinent. Many authors have their work compared to it and their characters compared to Saleem Sinai. and focus on aspects of his complex character. The character has been discussed as being in many ways an autobiographical representation of Rushdie himself.