Saleem Sinai was born at midnight, the midnight of India's independence, and found himself handcuffed to history by the coincidence. He is one of 1,001 children born at the midnight hour, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent. This is a family saga set against the background of the India of the 20th century.

The Asian literary phenomenon of the 90s.

The classic Number One bestseller from award-winning author Vikram Seth.

It is 1948. Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War II, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated painter Masuji Ono fills his days attending to his garden, his house repairs, his two grown daughters and his grandson, and his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet Iantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his

Azaro is a spirit child who is born only to live for a short while before returning to the idyllic world of his spirit companions. Now he has chosen to stay in the world of the living.

As the citizens of a Caribbean nation creep through the corridors of the presidential palace in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man laying dead on the floor can be self-styled General of the Universe. This title traces the demands of a man whose egocentric mask the loneliness of isolation.