Literary space lends identity not only to the writer but also to the literary piece. Hence, it is very significant regarding our sense of belonging. English, American, Canadian and Russian writers have been writing in the spaces of their countries of origin and one could recognise them in their literature. The same has been the case with postcolonial literature, which was supposed to be produced by writers from the formerly colonised countries. However, the multiplicity of literary spaces in postcolonial literature brought under one umbrella disrupted its claim of space and identity. International politics, globalisation and the inherent divide of “Us” and “Other” further aggravated the situation. The post 9/11 fiction, especially in the 21st century, portrayed space trapped within the globalised political context rather than one country or a nation.
South Asian Postcolonial literature, especially Pakistani fiction began to undergo an unhinging of the claimed literary space even earlier than 9/11. For example, the writings of Nadeem Aslam like, Maps for the Lost Lovers and those of Bapsi Sidhwa like An American Brat disrupted the Pakistani literary space when writers made their characters shift and divide constantly between local space and the foreign space in their writings. Hamid, for example, gave a much clearer confusion by including not only American space but also its characters belonging to America and yet the narrative has been known as Pakistani postcolonial fiction.
The very essence and spirit of postcolonialism are that it may not belong to any particular space.
The 21st century saw a revival of Said’s orientalism with rather a vigorousness under the headings like racialism and Islamophobia and it further indentured the space and identity issues. Hamid’s Exit West is one of these manifestations where the writer has not given any identity to the space on which the story is being developed. Moreover, it is not just one space but a multiplicity of spaces where the story keeps on moving. The protagonists of the story move from an unknown land and pass-through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Europe and attempt to relocate to England after a long and tedious wait and tense resistance of refugee migrants. The origin of the story and its space does not look like Pakistan, nor does the writer provide any clues. The characters of the story constantly suffer from deterritorialization and constantly look for re-territorialization and so do not have any space to belong to. Even the end of the story suggests once more the instability of the space in this piece of fiction.
Similarly, Hanif Mohammad, whose narratives like A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Our Lady Allice Bhati portrayed Pakistani space and identity. But his latest Red Birds is the portrayal of an anonymous space, which seems to be like the Middle East. Yet, the piece of fiction is Pakistani postcolonial fiction. The characters, their psyches and their styles of life resemble very little with Pakistan and its people. The inclusion of American space under the title HANGAR in the desert further disrupts the landscape because of the power politics involved in it and hence establishes the presence of American power. Though the American warplane and the American space is shown to be destroyed, yet it is destroyed on its own rather than by the indigenous resistance. Moreover, people are shown to be displaced and living within the camps established by the American army and always waiting for the food supplies dropped by the Americans after they had finished dropping bombs. In a way, in these texts, the writers have expanded the horizons of their space to be more in alignment with international politics and hence reinvigorating the scarcity of markers with which the orient had been identifying himself so far.
The disruption of space portrayed by the Pakistani postcolonial writers can be understood in the global political context. Most of these writers live less in Pakistan and more in the European and American territories. So, to follow the political narratives of the lands they reside in, they attempt to be more in line with the international political scenario rather than adhering to the Pakistani landscape. This lends them not only the status of a nomadic writer but also asserts the disappearing significance of indigenous landscape, people and spaces in the fiction under the umbrella of postcolonial. It is also because the very essence and spirit of postcolonialism are that it may not belong to any particular space and rather must be about the history and development that was made in the name of postcolonial.
Though Pakistani postcolonial fiction represents Pakistan but in the sense of how the international community visualises the Pakistani nation and its space in the global political scenario. When seen in this context, the current Pakistani fiction becomes truly Pakistani postcolonial, which represents Pakistani space as is deemed fit by the global power structures responsible for this very indentured change of space representation.
The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson College, Multan. He can be reached at [email protected] and Tweets at @Profzee