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Title Re-Orientalizing the Orient: A Self-Orientalist Perspective on Afghan Anglophone Fiction

Author(s) Mr. Wajid Riaz

Abstract ABSTRACT Title: Re-Orientalizing the Orient: A Self-Orientalist Perspective on Afghan Anglophone Fiction This dissertation is a postcolonial study of Afghan Anglophone fiction. It is delimited to Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed and Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone. Located on a larger scale in Afghan Anglophone literary tradition and focused on narratives written by diasporic writers, this investigation is in the area of Orientalists discourses, contributed by Afghan Anglophone writers. The main argument of this study is that, through their construction of relational, hybrid, multiple, and shifting subjectivities/identities in their narratives, diasporic writers have appropriated the Western cannon. In this context Afghan Anglophone writers; Khalid Hosseini and Atiq Rahimi endorse Orientalists discourses and coin the self-othering concept of the Orient. The concept is called Self-Orientalism while the process is called Re-Orientalism. The main argument of the research is the Re-Orientalization the Orient from self-Orientalist perspective. Afghanistan has always been an arena for international conflicts and has served as a buffer zone for the world powers wherein to settle their disputes. The decades long wars and turbulences have left the country devastated and its people vulnerable. And as such it has not yet passed that phase of being a lucrative part of the orient, worthy of the representation and stereotyping of the west, as well as its own people. The present study tries to examine what such self-representations might entail. For this purpose, Hosseini’ s The Kite Runner, And The Mountains Echoed and Rahimi’s The Patience Stone have been selected which are the stories of men and women’s tormented inner self in search of voice and many other stereotypes labeled on Afghans. Orientalism theory by Edward Said, Re- orientalization theory by Lisa Lau, Dirlik’s theory of Self-Orientalism have been used as theoretical framework. Said’s Orientalism has been consulted as a background theory. The findings of the study underline that the culturally indiscrete portrayal of Afghani identity is actually a colonial portrayal, by the author in a postcolonial era. Moreover, the claim for authentic representation ends up in self-stereotyping and misrepresentation of the v diverse ethnic groups within the country because the strategies of representation used by the authors are not devoid of their inherent politics and are, thus, ethical and political in nature. Furthermore, the sense of self in a postcolonial era and the hegemony of “us” and “them” within the self in the context of Afghanistan have also been highlighted in this analysis.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-08-20

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Contributor(s) Dr. Nighat Ahmad

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