International Journal of Linguistics & Communication

Identity Crisis as Reflected in selected Works: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and the Black Album by Hanif Kureishi
Sobia Kiran

Abstract
The identity of Pakistanis is more endangered in post 9/11 situation than it was ever before. Being Pakistani means to be part of a society divided into various groups at war with one another on religious, sectarian and political issues. To have one unique national identity is simply impossible in such a situation, when Pakistan is not only engaged in war on terror but also herself a victim of terrorism. People loyal to different groups mainly divided into liberals (educated, enlightened and progressive) and fundamentalists (religious extremists, fanatics and ‘jihadis’) feel themselves marginalized in their own society. They are looked as ‘others’ in their own homeland. Their situation is comparable to that of the characters portrayed in the selected works of Mohsin Hamid and Hanif Kureishi facing identity crisis in a diasporic environment. Pakistani writers like African, Central and South American writers are responding back to the old colonizers and today’s policy makers. 9/11 transformed the image of the Muslim world into fundamentalists and terrorists forever. Another obsession with Pakistani writers is the loss of values, religious and political exploitation of common masses, suicide attacks, and sectarianism and the consequent evolution of an individual’s perception of his identity in an alienated social framework.

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