Midnight's Children Wins Best of Bookers

Salman Rushdie's classic Midnight's Children, which nabbed the Booker Prize 27 years ago, has now won the Best of the Bookers by public vote, the Guardian reports. About a boy born at the hour of India's independence, the novel won over six previous prize winners. The prize "looks at what qualities of books survive" their "temporary celebrity," said one judge.

Here is the Best of the Bookers shortlist, in descending order by vote tally after Midnight's Children:

• JM Coetzee's Disgrace (1999)
• Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
• Pat Barker's The Ghost Road (1995)
• JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
• Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist (1974)