Debating ambivalence of Anglo-Pakistani authors: between minor literature and marketable commodity

Younas, A. and Aslam, M. (2022) Debating ambivalence of Anglo-Pakistani authors: between minor literature and marketable commodity. Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology, 19(1), pp. 1353-1365.

Abstract

This study is an attempt to examine Anglo-Pakistani author’s stance in their writings. Caught between two cultures, two worlds and multiple languages, Anglo-Pakistani authors are often accused of orientalizing their cultures but at the same time, these writers speak to the western canon by presenting Pakistani customs and traditions in their writings. These authors choose to assert themselves, their social verity and portray the plight of minorities in the language of majority to contribute in the canon of minor literature. However, in so doing, they have fetishized themselves too because the global publishing industry requires these authors to adopt the voices of their ex-colonial empire and to translate their cultures for Western audiences in the Western metropolitan locales. By employing many marketing strategies like; anti-essentialism, essentialism, exoticism and dis-identification in their writings, these authors repudiate and accept the dominant mode of writings simultaneously and contribute in the minor literature too. Theorizing with Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of Minor Literature, Lipsitz’s anti-essentialism, Birkle’s Cultural Brokerage, Lau’s re-orientalism, Muñoz’s disidentification process and beyond the work of these scholars, this study examines that how do Anglo-Pakistani authors position themselves in their writings with special reference to the corpus of the selected Anglo-Pakistani fiction. Finding themselves at a mediatory position, it is suggested that these authors perform the role of mediators between two worlds: West and Pakistan, in their writings while observing the market forces.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Younas, Ms Abida
• Authors: Younas, A., and Aslam, M.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies ; College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures
• Journal Name: Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology
• Publisher: PalArch Foundation
• ISSN: 1567-214X
• ISSN (Online): 1567-214X
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © The Author(s) 2022
• First Published: First published in Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology 19(1):1353-1365
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license