America, being a country of extreme liberalism, individual freedom, choice and existence and modern & lavish way of living is a center of attraction for the people of Third world. And the new rise of globalization and capitalism has also added to its glory. So, people from the other parts of the world in search of better ways of living, high standard and for monetary gain often go to settle there.
But everything is not as easy as it appears as more or less they have to face some problems in a new atmosphere. And the most important issue is adjustment or assimilation. The fact is that some people find it difficult to adapt themselves to new surroundings which are totally different than the society of their native country. They experience culture shock as American culture and society are very different from their traditional ones. This is especially a vital issue with the Muslim communities when they migrate to the United States.
In recent times, there is a rise of diasporic writers who are also enriching American literature by sharing their immigrant experiences. Though there are many such writers I am focusing on Mohja Kafh, Khaled Hosseini, Asra Nomani, and Samima Ali.
Keywords: Diasporic Muslim writers, American Literature, Immigrant experience, Third world country.
The Rise of Diasporic Muslim Writers in American Literature: Mohja Kahf, Khaled Hosseini, Asra Nomani & Samima Ali
Dr. Shamenaz Bano, Assistant Professor, Department of English, S. S. Khanna Girls’ Degree College, Allahabad, India
Abstract
America, being a country of extreme liberalism, individual freedom, choice and existence as well as modern & lavish way of living is a centre of attraction for the people of the Third world. And the new rise of globalization and capitalism has also added to its glory. So, people from the other parts of the world in search of better ways of living, high standard and for monetary gain often go to settle there.
But everything is not as easy as it appears as more or less they have to face some problems in a new atmosphere. And the most important issue is adjustment or assimilation. The fact is that some people find it difficult to adapt themselves to a new surrounding which is different than the society of their native country. They experience culture shock as American culture and society are very different from their traditional one. This is especially a vital issue with the Muslim communities when they migrate to the United States.
In recent times, there is a rise of diasporic writer who is also enriching the American literature by sharing their immigrant experiences. Though there are many such writers I am focusing on Mohja Kafh, Khaled Hosseini, Asra Nomani and Samima Ali.
Keywords: Diasporic Muslim writers, American Literature, Immigrant experience, Third world country.
Introduction
The United States of America is considered as the most developed country. A nation, which belongs to the category of First World countries and is considered as a Superpower. The language widely spoken in this country is English, so the literature of this country is basically in English. Many famous writers are belonging to America like- Arthur Miller, Henry James, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Mark Twain and many others. Now, this link had further expanded with diasporic writers from different countries who have though not born in America but made it as their abode defining its multicultural culture.
People from other parts of the world migrate to America on a large scale due to various reasons. They have various dreams and aspirations but not every time, their dreams are fulfilled or it takes half of their lifetime. Living in an alien land is not so easy and they had to face minor or major problems; the most important is assimilation in a culture which is different than theirs. Now many people, for expressing their feelings, experiences and problems have taken the help of Literature. Since literature is the only medium of the expression of a person's experiences, diasporic literature has been abundant in the past few years, who want to share their views and experiences with other people of the world. As Paul Brians speak:
Indeed, “postcolonial” writers often move to England or North America (because they have been exiled, or because they find a the more receptive audience there, or simply in search of a more comfortable mode of living) and even sometimes—like Soyinka --call upon the governments of these “neo-colonialist” nations to the aid of freedom movements seeking to overthrow native tyrants. (2: Brians)
These writers are unable to detach their minds from the land from where they belong. There is nostalgia in these writers that colours their works. There is also a concern for a homeland which they have left behind.
“The diasporic authors engage in the cultural transmission that is equitably exchanged in the manner of translating a map of reality for multiple readerships. Moreover, they are equipped with bundles of memories and articulate an amalgam of global and national strands that embody the real and imagined experience." In this way diasporic literature is a major part of contemporary literature because of the global understanding it imparts to the readers. Sometimes it also helps in depicting the genuine problems of any country. It is 'imagined experience' but the fundamental of this image is rooted in reality.
Some terms that are usually associated with diaspora are like exile, alienation, nostalgia, despair, dislocation, abandonment and disintegration. But at the same time, it is also true what Aizaz Ahmad opines. He says, “Diasporic writings are to some extent about the business of finding new Angles to enter reality; the distance, geographical and cultural enables new structures of feeling. The hybridity is subversive. It resists cultural authoritarianism and challenges official truths." (126) In the contemporary scenario, Diaspora has become an effective tool of postmodernism using which the big voice of Master Narratives could be challenged. Those living on the margin, who feel exiled and alienated from their roots and find no place of their own, can effectively discharge their voice.
Muslims also constitutes a major part of the American population. And they have also developed literature known as Muslim American Literature, which is denied by many people.
But Mohja Kahf, one of the famous poet and author of America argues that there is writing known as Muslim American Literature (MAL). She elaborates her point by saying that: It begins with the Muslims of the Black Arts Movement (1965-75) The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of its iconic texts; it includes American Sufi writing, secular ethnic novels, writing by immigrant and second-generation Muslims and religious American Muslim literature. Many of the works I would put into this category can and do also get read in other categories, such as African American, Arab American, and South Asian literature, “Third World” women’s writing, diasporic Muslim literature in English, and so forth. (163)
She believes that the place of these works in other categories cannot be denied and when u read them you will gain something together as part of an American Muslim cultural landscape. She compares Muslim American Literature with the Jewish American Literature by the 1930s but says that it is in a formative stage.
Mohja Kahf is a Syrian born Arab-American poet and author and currently working as an Associate Professor of comparative literature in King Fahad Centre for the Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She has earned a PhD in comparative literature from Rutgers University, USA. She is the author of Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque (1999), E-mails from Scheherazade (poetry, 2003), and The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (novel, 2006).
Her book, Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque is highly praised by scholars all around the world. As Farzaneh Milani, Professor of University of Virginia says:
An insightful and provocative book. With an impressive knowledge of European literature from the medieval period to the mod-nineteenth a century and in command of literary and feminist criticisms as well as Islamic history, Mohja Kahf unearths and revives conveniently forgotten images of Muslim women. This fascinating genealogy___ relegated to oblivion, pushed in the footnotes, forced into invisibility___ reveals the evolving images of Muslim women in the West.
Not only Mohja Kahf but many other Muslim Writers from across the world made America their new dwelling place like- Khaled Hosseini, Asra Nomani, Samina Ali to name few. These names are of great significance as they have gain name and fame around the world.
Khaled Hosseini is another American based English fiction writer. Not only a novelist but he is also a physician who was born in Afghanistan but has acquired most of his education in the United States. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles in 1996. He practised medicine until a year and a half after the release of The Kite Runner.
Hosseini was interested in writing so in 2003; he was able to publish his debut novel, The Kite Runner, which became an international bestseller, selling in more than 12 million copies worldwide. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was released in 2007 and became the bestselling novel in the UK.
The novel, The Kite Runner is very close to Khaled Hosseini and sometimes it seems to be an autobiographical novel. It is a story set in Pre-Soviet occupied Afghanistan. He says, “I have very fond memories of my childhood in Afghanistan.” Hosseini memories of peaceful Pre-Soviet era Afghanistan as well as his personal experiences with Afghanistan’s Hazara people led to the writing of his first novel, The Kite Runner. A man named, Hossein Khan, who was a Hazara, worked for the Hosseini's when they were living in Iran. When Khaled was a kid and studying in school, he taught Khan to read and write. Although his relation with Hossein Khan was brief and rather formal, Hosseini's fond memories of this relationship served as an inspiration for the relationship between Hassan and Amir in the book.
The Kite Runner shows the life-long guilt consciousness of the protagonist, Amir and the way by which he can redeem himself from it. So in this way, it is a story of guilt and redemption. The novel revolves around Amir, who has a guilt consciousness because in childhood he is not able to save his friend, Hassan from being molested being a coward. And later on, he was also responsible for droving Hassan and his father Ali, who is his father's faithful servant, out of the house. Throughout his life, he is haunted by the guilt consciousness of his childhood misdeed. Not only this, but there are also other themes are included in the novel like__ the ethnic tensions between the Pashtuns and Hazaras in Afghanistan and the immigrant experiences of Amir and his father in the United States.
Throughout the novel, Hosseini has tried to show the ethnic rivalry existing between the high class and the low class i.e. Pashtuns and Hazaras. The Pashtun community which considers themselves as the high class is dominant in the country and they have a hatred for the Hazara community, which is considered by them as low class. One of the reasons for this hatred is that Pashtuns belong to the Sunni community and Hazara to Shias, resulting in the age-old clash of Sunnis and Shias.
So, Hosseini has tried to show the ethnic rivalry existing in Afghanistan between Pashtuns and Hazara. He has also tried to show the destruction which the Taliban regime has done there and how the people are sufferings because of it. But there is no evidence of US-led destruction of Afghanistan in any of his novel for which he is highly criticized.
It is a commonplace of modernism that the exiled writers benefit from his or her uprooting and that what is left behind is seen more clearly from a distance, while the new abode is seen in a sharper focus than its indigenes can manage. This rule, however, seems only to apply to Western writers: the rest is only too likely to find themselves categorized as one of Gayatri Spivak’s ‘privileged native informants’ _____ thus rendering themselves ‘inoperative within the Third World literary discourse’ (outcast indeed) which Amin Malak has defined as ‘critical (at times severely critical) of its cultural roots, yet… militantly committed to them. (184)
Asra Nomani is an Indian diasporic writer who deals with Muslim Women Reforms Movement. She is controversial around the world because of her liberal attitude. She teaches journalism at Georgetown University and is co-director of the Pearl Project.
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