Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie , احمد سلمان رشدی ; born 19 June 1947) is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children , won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations.