India — The Book Roads

Books from India

Salman Rushdie

Two Indian actors survive a plane explosion over the English Channel and undergo fantastical transformations in London. The novel's dream sequences involving a prophet-like figure led to Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Rushdie.

1988

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie

Saleem Sinai, born at the stroke of Indian independence in 1947, discovers he is telepathically linked to the 1,000 other children born in that hour. Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel — later awarded the "Booker of Bookers" — is a magical-realist history of postcolonial India.

1981

The God of Small Things

Arundhati Roy

Fraternal twins in Kerala, India, are scarred by a childhood tragedy shaped by caste, colonial history, and forbidden love. Roy's Booker Prize-winning debut, written over four years, is celebrated for its lyrical, unconventional prose.

1997

Authors from India

Arundhati Roy

Indian novelist and political activist (born 1961) who won the Booker Prize for her debut novel in 1997. She spent the following two decades writing non-fiction and activism before returning to fiction with a second novel twenty years later.

Salman Rushdie

British-Indian novelist (born 1947) and Booker Prize winner known for his use of magical realism and allegorical style. His fourth novel prompted Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his death in 1989.

About India

ISO Code: IN
Continent: Asia

Literary Context

Indian literature in English burst onto the world stage with Salman Rushdie's magical-realist reinvention of Indian history and Arundhati Roy's lyrical exploration of caste, love, and loss. Indian writers navigate the tensions between tradition and modernity, local and global, with linguistic inventiveness and narrative ambition.