Abstract
This paper, informed by the approaches of New Historicism, attempts to examine fiction by Khaled
Hosseini in the context of Afghan culture and history. The main body of this paper consists of the analysis of Khaled
Hosseini’s two novels; The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007). Although his novels may be
read and interpreted by using different theoretical prisms, the objective of this research is to review these novels
from the new historical angle. This research has drawn upon theories of New Historicism as proposed by Stephen
Greenblatt, Louis Montrose, Stephen Orgel and Robert Weimann. By focusing on the era of the late 90s and early
2000s, with the wake and rise of Taliban, we intend to see the struggles of various ideological discourses. We
examine in Hosseini’s fiction how the author, through his novels, challenges the narratives of history as written in
political history books and how his stories prove to be a re-telling and deconstruction of the Afghan history as he
targets the gaps and silences left in the political, historical texts. We argue that these texts shape and align the
readers’ perception of the social, political and cultural state of Afghanistan with the established ideas and also
entirely contest and challenge it.
Sadia Nazeer, Raheela Nisar, Fatima Hifsa. (2022) Towards a Poetics of Culture”: A New Historic Critique of Khaled Hosseini’s Fiction, Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, volume 59, issue 3.
-
Views
495 -
Downloads
128
Article Details
Volume
Issue
Type
Language
