Post 9/11 Identity Crisis in H.M Naqvi's Home Boy

Abstract

Since 9/11, the paradigms defining identity underwent a major transition. People came to be termed as ‘terrorists’ on the basis of their religious and ethnic roots. The identity based issues faced by an average Pakistani on the streets of New York or any other American city were highlighted in many post 9/11 Pakistani English novels. The Pakistani writers of English fiction placed the varying notions of identity under the microscope of their penetrative insights. What this study proposes is that among Pakistanis living in the USA, an identity crisis has been generated in the 9/11 backdrop. With American imperialism surfacing, the individual self has become the negotiating ground for the subaltern to establish balance between ‘Otherness’ as being contoured by religion as an identity signifier. The major research objectives of this study are defining the notions of the ‘Self’ as exemplified by the protagonist of the novel Home Boy by H.M Naqvi in addition to defining the idea of a ‘terrorist’. This study will also investigate the perplexity that has been added to the concept of the ‘Self’ in the average pro-West Pakistani citizen and its reflection in post-9/11 Pakistani fiction in English. It will also scrutinize the search for a new parameter to define identity in terms of being a Pakistani and a Muslim by the protagonist of Home Boy. The research questions that this study undertakes are: What is meant by the notion of a fragmented identity in the context of Pakistani fiction in English? What alterations has the concept of the ‘Other’ undergone in the post-9/11 world and how has this affected the notion of the Self in post-9/11 Pakistani fiction in English? Are the protagonists in the post-9/11 Pakistani fiction in English moving from a hybrid identity to a unified identity? Is the Westernized protagonist of this novel aspiring towards a Muslim identity? The study is exploratory in purpose, following the holistic content-based mode of analysis.

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