Literature and Politics

"I am tired of ontological insecurity and epistemological chaos. I need order. I miss metanarrative." 

This claim sums up the dilemma of the twenty first century.  Post-Modernists might dismiss metanarratives, but the sales of Khalid Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns exemplifies their immense lure. 

My paper will interrogate the ways in which these two novels fictionalize the history of Afganistan:- The novels under scrutiny deal with historical events such as Daoud’s overthrow of monarchy in 1973, the coup d’état of April 1978 and the Soviet invasion of December 1979; national resistence and Soviet entrenchment (1980-83); air war, interdiction, and destabilization (1983-86); Mujahideen gains and Soviet withdrawals (1986-89); high intensity civil war (1989-92); Taliban ascendance (1994-98); and international terrorism post 9/11 through the prism of the individual consciousness.  

I will argue that deploying the personal meta-narrative, in an age of post-modern historiographic crisis, allows the diasporic writer to chronicle a collective identity for Afganistan, especially the women of the home country (Afganistan). Hosseini’s narratives are important because they draw attention to the excessive violations against women even before the Taliban came into power in Afganistan; violations which have been ignored by the international community. 

The personal meta-narrative thus enables Hosseini to articulate a theory of empowerment that pays attention to voices which have been marginalised by disciplinary and normalising power regimes and create a space for contrapuntal politics.