Insurgent Metaphors: Decentering 9/11 in Mohsin Hamid’s <i>The Reluctant Fundamentalist</i> and Kamila Shamsie’s <i>Burnt Shadows</i>

Authors

  • Harleen Singh Brandeis University

Keywords:

Postcolonial Literatures, Commonwealth Literature, International English Literature, Studies of the Novel

Abstract

This article examines the novels The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) by Mohsin Hamid and Burnt Shadows (2009) by Kamila Shamsie as significant examples of Pakistani writing in English after 9/11. Popular American discourse has remained mostly concerned with the cultural peculiarities of non-western and Islamic cultures such as those of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, especially as they coalesce in the figure of the terrorist. Thus, in the reevaluation of feeling, memory, and history prompted by 9/11, the multiple and shifting notions of the “other” now converge to form a singular threat. This figure of decrepitude, prevalently constructed with the accompanying markers of illiteracy, fundamentalism, hatred, and violence, is rearticulated in Hamid and Shamsie's novels to produce the disempowered refugee, the disenchanted immigrant, and the dissident citizen.

Author Biography

Harleen Singh, Brandeis University

 Harleen Singh is the Helaine and Alvin Allen Assistant Professor of Literature at Brandeis University.Her interests lie in the postcolonial novel, Indian film and music, women’s literature and history, narratives of the South Asian Diaspora, and characterizations of postcolonial urban space.She has published articles on South Asian literature and film, and completed a manuscript on literary and cinematic representations of Rani Lakshmi Bai, Queen of Jhansi, who fought the British in 1857.Her next project examines postcolonial novels and film as responses to moments of instability, terror, and crisis.

 

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Published

2012-11-27

Issue

Vol. 43 No. 1 (2012): January 2012

Section

Articles

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