Volume II Special Issue IV April 2022

Name of Author : Shafaq Muzaffar

Title of the paper : Post-truth: The Good American and The Bad American in Select works of Khaled Hosseini and Nadeem Aslam

Abstract: Khaled Hosseini is a Afghan born American writer and Nadeem Aslam is a Pakistani origin British author. Both are writers of international acclaim. Khaled Hosseini has so far written three novels The Kite Runner 2003, A Thousand Splendid Suns 2007 , And The Mountains Echoed 2013 and a short story A sea Prayer. All the three novels are themed around Afghanistan. Nadeem Aslam has written six novels out of which two are themed around Afghanistan. He has written five novels - Season of the Rainbirds 1993, Maps for Lost Lovers 2004, The Wasted Vigil2008, The Blind Man’s Garden 2013, The Golden Legend 2017 and a short story Leila in the wilderness. What emerges out of these Afghan based novels is the stereotyping and otherisation of an entire religion , region and race. Also what gets authentication out of these novels is the image of America as a garden of eden. In fact for Hosseini its eden itself. More than representation in these novels we find misrepresentation of Afghanistan in these novels. And alas we fail to find counter discourse against the First Worlds interpretation of the rest. Never the less when one takes a deep drive into Khaled Hosseini’s and Nadeem Aslam’s novels one finds that apart from the Good Muslim and Bad Muslim discourse we do have a good American and Bad American counter discourse mushrooming out unconsciously out of these texts to cater the reality and reach the realm of post truth.

Keywords : Post-truth, interpretation, strategic

DOI :

Page Number : 222-225