'Midnight's Children' was written by:

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, born in Bombay (Mumbai) on 19 June 1947, is a British-American novelist of Indian origin. "Midnight's Children", published in 1981, is his second novel and his most celebrated work.

The novel tells the story of Saleem Sinai, who is born at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947, the exact moment India gains independence. He discovers that he and the other 1,000 or so children born in the first hour of India's independence have special powers, and that his life is closely linked to the history of the nation. Through his story, the novel covers events such as Partition, the wars with Pakistan, the creation of Bangladesh and the Emergency of 1975-77. It uses magic realism, a style that mixes realistic events with magical elements.

"Midnight's Children" won the Booker Prize in 1981. It was later named the "Booker of Bookers" in 1993 and "The Best of the Booker" in 2008, as the best novel among all Booker winners. A film version, directed by Deepa Mehta, was released in 2012.

Rushdie's other works include "Shame" (1983), "The Satanic Verses" (1988), "The Moor's Last Sigh" (1995), "Shalimar the Clown" (2005) and "Victory City" (2023). "The Satanic Verses" led to a fatwa against him in 1989, and he lived under protection for years. He was knighted in 2007. In 2022, he was stabbed at a public event in New York State and lost the sight of one eye; his memoir about this attack, "Knife", was published in 2024.

Why not the other options?

V.S. Naipaul wrote "A House for Mr Biswas" and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.

Vikram Seth wrote "A Suitable Boy" and "The Golden Gate".

Amitav Ghosh wrote "The Shadow Lines" and "Sea of Poppies"; he won the Jnanpith Award in 2018.