A Narrative Experiment: From the Revived Oral Tradition in Haroun and The Sea of Stories to Staccato Gaming in Luka and The Fire of Life

In an attempt to represent the hybrid culture of a postcolonial India, Salmon Rushdie strives for aesthetic experiment and political assertion through his signature technique, magical realism. Compared to Rushdie’s other works, his two books for children, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and Luka and the Fire of Life (2010), seem light-hearted and fairy-tale-like, as child protagonists miraculously solve their problems through magic (the novels will hereafter be referred to as Haroun and Luka). These two novellas, written by Rushdie to entertain his sons, Zafar and Milan, illustrate how child protagonists can understand and solve problems in their world by exploring magical worlds and restoring the importance of storytelling. The two novellas also reflect Rushdie’s consistent worry about young people tasked with diversifying personal, cultural, and political discourses so as to improve society and enrich culture