The Muslim American Encounter in Narratives of 9/11 and Its Aftermath : Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced

Abstract

This thesis examines fictional narratives of contemporary Muslim American experiences applying postcolonial literary theory. A survey on the subgenre of 9/11 fiction gives further context to the two texts under analysis. The first text is the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) by Mohsin Hamid, in which a Pakistani-born Changez has found success in New York City’s finance industry, but is disillusioned after the 9/11 attacks. Similarly, in Ayad Akhtar’s play Disgraced (2013), the successful attorney Amir descends into brutal violence after a catastrophic dinner party. I argue that the two authors with Pakistani backgrounds engage with 9/11 discourse trough the bold perspective of two Muslim Americans who are confronted with the difficult task of negotiating their dual identities in a post-9/11 society. Stereotypes of Islam and Muslim as presented by the Western media after the 9/11 terrorist attacks are not only harmful but also dangerous in a society that is preoccupied with condemning and vilifying its ‘Other’. Using Culture Talks as conceptualized by Mahmood Mamdani in his book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, I analyse the two primary sources’ engagement with the topics of profiling, surveillance, violence, and radicalisation.