Salman Rushdie

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He is an Indian writer, and I bet you can find every piece of information you want about him on the Internet. I have 'discovered' him this year, when we studied the beginning of Midnight's Children - one of my favorite novels.
Salman Rushdie is a voice. A powerful voice, like that of the storyteller coupled with the genius of a writer. The words under his pen are alive. They juggle and jeer and weep and dance on the white page. This is not ink, it cannot be. His books are so rich : as if he wanted to capture the whole of the world within a novel.

I've read MC of course, The Moor's last Sigh, and I'm currently reading Shalimar the Clown. But MC is the best. Maybe because it was my first Salman Rushdie, but I'm not sure that's it. There is something special in that novel - a something that cannot be pinned like a poor butterfly on a wall, because it is everywhere and nowhere. Like Life.
Here is how it begins :

I was born in the city of Bombay...once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time ? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more...On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clockhands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it ou, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world.