---

This work proposes a study of Salman Rushdie´s Midnight´s Children as a re-reading of John Milton´s Paradise Lost. Milton´s epic has been read in terms of British imperialism and linked to a tradition of affirmation of nation. Taking up Paradise Lost, Midnight´s Children dialogues with the epic´s stature of upholder of nationality and suggests that the perception of nation-ness associated to it informs also independent India´s national identity. But as its explosive heterogeneity surfaces, Midnight´s Children depicts the nation as an imagined community, instead of the stable homogeneity it initially appeared to be. This leads to a questioning of the nation as the privileged space in which to negotiate meanings and identification. At this point Midnight´s Children adapts Milton´s concept of the paradise within as a better positioning before these difficulties. In its proposed reading of Paradise Lost, in which the paradise within is the central theme rather than national legitimization, Midnight´s Children also proposes new ways of viewing the former imperial national self-representation and its constituting texts.

---

Mayra Helena Alves Olalquiaga was born in Brazil. She has a Bachelor Degree in English and a Masters Degree in English literatures. She is currently a Doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature, working also with John Milton and contemporary authors. She has also worked with film and literature studies.

---