NEO-ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY NEGOTIATION IN THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST AND THE KITE RUNNER

Abstract

This paper critically examines The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini through the lens of Neo-Orientalism, focusing on how these texts construct, challenge, and subvert post-9/11 representations of Muslim identities. Both novels engage with dominant Western narratives that often exoticize, marginalize, or vilify Eastern subjects, particularly Muslims, in the wake of global terrorism discourses. The analysis centers on the protagonists’ complex negotiations of identity within Western spaces Changez in New York and Amir in California and their eventual return to their Eastern roots. The paper argues that the West is portrayed as a paradoxical space: initially idealized as a land of opportunity, it is later revealed to be exclusionary and conditional in its acceptance. Conversely, the East emerges as a spiritual and cultural repository, offering belonging, tradition, and moral clarity. The study also interrogates how Occidental identity reconstructs itself in a post-9/11 world through surveillance, racial profiling, and cultural dominance, further marginalizing those seen as ‘the other’. Through close textual analysis and postcolonial theory, the paper highlights how both authors analyzes the binaries of East/West, self/other, and modern/traditional, offering more nuanced understandings of diasporic identity, home, and belonging. Ultimately, the novels serve as acts of resistance, reclaiming narrative agency and exposing the limitations of Neo-Orientalist frameworks in representing Muslim experiences.

Keywords: Neo-Orientalism, Post-9/11 literature, Postcolonial fiction, East-West relations, Diaspora, Occidental identity, Cultural representation.