ABSTRACT

Observing Pakistani literature through the prism of globalised anglophone studies, this text examines how Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced construct US-American inoutside perspectives and deliver poignant commentary on Pakistani and Pakistani-American identity politics. The analysis considers both fictional texts as informed by the USA’s complicated relationship with Pakistan and situated within a transcultural continuum connecting the two countries. It demonstrates that both texts look at US-American society from within and without and engage with 9/11 as a significant moment for identity formation and an event that triggers processes of dissociation in the protagonists.