Salman Rushdie reveals why Midnight’s Children is going on Netflix

An announcement that Netflix has selected the celebrated Salman Rushdie’s most well-known novel Midnight’s Children about the amazing aftermath of India’s Partition into two countries, for serialization , prompted thoughts on the feature film that Rushdie’s dear friend Deepa Mehta had made from the novel in 2013.

So why another screen version of Midnight’s Children? I asked Mr Rushdie.

The author-extraordinaire explained, “Midnight’s Children has had many incarnations. First a novel, then a Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage play, a BBC radio serial, and a film. If anyone wants to make it into a Broadway musical I’d be interested in that too! A life in one medium, one art form, does not preclude a new life in another.”

When I asked about Deepa Mehta’s thoughts on a new avatar for a book she had so diligently filmed Mr Rushdie explained, “I discussed the Netflix project with Deepa Mehta before the announcement and she was excited, and 100% supportive.”

For many years Midnight’s Children was considered unfilmable. But Salman Rushdie disagrees. “Nothing is unfilmable. Good films have been made of Anna Karenina, Ulysses, The Tin Drum, even Proust. It's just a question of finding the way, and that's what we tried to do. There's no magic trick. Just hard work.”