One of the things I've thought about 'Midnight's Children' is that it is a novel which puts a Muslim family at the centre of the Indian experience.

They lived in a great city, a metropolis of many narratives that converged briefly and then separated for ever, discovering their different dooms in that crowd of stories through which all of us, following our own destinies, had to push and shove to find our way through, or out.

English, no longer an English language, now grows from many roots.

I was living in New York at the time of the 9/11 attacks. And I remember, you know, in those weeks that followed, when none of us spoke about anything else really, a number of friends of mine, people I knew, including very experienced journalists, I heard them saying things like, well, now we understand what happened to you.

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long.

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.