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Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist has become a major literary work in the aftermath of 9/11 massacre, which has produced or maintained deep-set racial prejudices against Muslims. Hamid’s novel has been highly instrumental in effacing or dismantling the Western religious bias against the Muslims, and thereby reminded us of Edward Said’s statement: “To demonize and dehumanise a whole culture on the grounds that it is ‘enraged’ at modernity is to turn Muslims into the objects of a therapeutic, punitive attention.” Ostensibly, to equate traditional and conservative as diabolic and as the symbols of terror has caused existential dilemmas for the sufferers and the oppressed. Changez, the protagonist of the novel, poses a serious question to the audience: “Why does everyone hate us?” This quite correctly points to the themes of fear and suffering of the Muslims as well as the Americans. It points to the institutionalization of racism in the era of globalization: where nations and races are still made subaltern by the superior and the mighty. Quite ironically, it is Hamid’s marginalized protagonist, Changez who does all the speaking throughout the novel, and makes the American listen to him. It is through this freedom of speech granted to Changez, that he undermines the American’s opinion about Pakistan, and underpins the advancing face of Muslims.
For this companion, we are seeking submissions of articles of 6,000-8,000 words that explore the following themes (but need not be limited to these):
Terror & Violence
Nationalism and Modernity
Ethnicity & Religion
Islamophobia
Cultural encounters
Postcolonial Otherness
Immigration & Integration
Negotiation of Identity and Alterity.
Extremism and Radicalisation
Globalisation & Sovereignty
The book is designed as a critical handbook to be used by academicians and scholars interested in the works of Mohsin Hamid.
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