Literary Representation of Muslim Immigrants and Refugees in Post 9/11 Novels
Abstract
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many Americans to vilify Muslims and Islam. Indeed, 9/11 bequeathed to the U.S. a new category of evil other, a decade and more after the “evil empire” of the USSR had been vanquished, and the cold war concluded. Present paper is the epochal connotations of post-9/11 literature by examining how novels written during this period by Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, H. M. Naqvi, foreground the consequences, historical roots, and imperialist dimensions of the War on Terror, consequences of Immigrants and refugees during that time. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, many influences, including media, politics, and literary texts, contributed to molding discourse. As a result, topics like religion, particularly Islam, and Muslims as terrorists have become serious threats to those in power and the general public. This paper will investigate how this new other is represented in four post-9/11 novels, Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Exit West, (2011), and H. M. Naqvi’s Home Boy (2010). Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden, This paper will demonstrate how the selected novels use point of view to examine difficult questions about the relation between communal identity and national belonging on the one hand, and durable forms of chauvinism and prejudice on the other. The 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US and the “War on Terror” issued in a new era of political violence that has had an enduring influence on power constructions between East and West in the twenty-first century. Writers have reflected on these events and explored the complexities of terrorism, producing literary fiction which not only tackles 9/11 and related events, but which some have also conceived of as a new and emerging genre.
How to Cite This Article
Dr. Ibrahim Khalilulla M (2023). Literary Representation of Muslim Immigrants and Refugees in Post 9/11 Novels . International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Growth Evaluation (IJMRGE), 4(5), 269-274.