Berättelser om trauma går lika långt tillbaka i tiden som trauma har existerat, och dessa har alltid varit sammanflätade. Traumaberättelser förekommer i olika former, såväl fiktiva som dokumentäriska. Även om fiktiva berättelser inte behöver grundas i ett sanningsanspråk, så fyller de ändå en viktig funktion: de kan ge läsare insikter om traumatiska händelser genom att läsaren får känna och uppleva fenomen på ett sätt som inte är möjligt genom enbart dokumentäriska metoder. Khaled Hosseinis roman And the Mountains Echoed (2013) skildrar sammanlänkade trauman utifrån flera perspektiv och karaktärer. Det alla karaktärer har gemensamt är att deras upplevelser faller under samma tema: hur svåra val, hemska öden och begränsade förutsättningar format och fortsätter forma karaktärerna med anknytning till Afghanistan. Romanen är mer narratologiskt komplex än Hosseinis tidigare verk vilket är något som betonats och beundrats i flertalet recensioner. Uppsatsen undersöker romanen narratologiskt utifrån ett traumaperspektiv och besvarar frågeställningen: på vilka sätt förhåller sig de narratologiska elementen till gestaltningen av trauma i romanen And the Mountains Echoed? I uppsatsen påvisas att trauma gestaltas genom den uppbrutna kronologin och det fragmentariska berättandet som kännetecknas av luckor och tystnad. Vidare hur berättarperspektivet och de olika berättarna tillsammans väver ihop ett nätverk som visar på det kollektiva traumat i Afghanistan, de enskilda historierna blir till en och samma historia, om ett krigsdrabbat land som lämnat öppna sår i sinnet hos sina invånare. Samt hur fokaliseringen är hanterad kan bidra till att läsaren har mer eller mindre kunskap än karaktärerna vilket utifrån traumateori kan vittna om trauma.

Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns portrays the harrowing narrative of two women living in oppressive circumstances enforced to them by society and by their husband. In their suffering, the two manage to find strength in each other. Hosseini depicts a complex society in which many factors contribute to the suffering the main characters experience, many of which could be described as New Orientalist. This thesis will analyse the way education is portrayed in the novel and how Hosseini offers us a nuanced presentation that counters the New Orientalist themes present in the novel. We will start by analysing the main characters’ personal attitudes towards education and the parental influences in their lives. Then we will continue to analyse the way society is portrayed to affect potential educational options through other characters. Last, we will focus on the political climate in the novel, in particularly the Soviet Union and the Taliban, and how they affected the development of the educational system present in A Thousand Splendid Suns.

This thesis is concerned with transnational literature and writers of the Middle Eastern and South Asian diasporas. It argues that the diasporic position of the authors enables their roles as comprador subjects. The thesis maintains that the figure of the comprador is always acted upon by its ontological predisposition, so that diasporic positionality often involves a single subject which straddles and speaks from two or more different subject positions. Comprador authors can be said to be co-opted by Western metropolitan publishing companies who stand to benefit by marketing the apparent marginality of the homelands about which these authors write. The thesis therefore proceeds from the notion that such a diasporic position is the paradoxical condition of the transnational subject or writer. I submit that there is, to some degree, a questionable element in the common political and cultural suggestions that emerge upon closer evaluation of diasporic literature. Indeed, a charge of complicity has been levelled against authors who write, apparently, to service two distinct entities – the wish to speak on behalf of a minority collective, as well as the imperial ‘centre’ which is the intended interlocutor of the comprador author. However, it is this difference, the implied otherness or marginality of the outsider within, which I argue is sometimes used by diasporic writers as a way of articulating with ‘authenticity’ the cultures and politics of their erstwhile localities. This thesis is concerned, therefore, with the representation of ‘the East’ in four novels by diasporic, specifically comprador writers, namely Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I suggest that the ‘third-world’ and transnational literature can also be a selling point for the transnational subject, whose representations may at times pander to preconceived ideas about ‘the Orient’ and its people. As an illustration of this double-bind, I offer a close reading of all the novels to suggest that on the one hand, the comprador author writes within the paradigm of the ‘writing back’ movement, as a counter-discourse to the Orientalist representations of the homeland. However, the corollary is that such an attempt to ‘write back’, in a sense, re-inscribes the very discourse it wishes to subvert, especially because the literature is aimed at a ‘Western’ audience. Moreover, the template of the comprador could be used to explain how a transnational post-9/11 text from an Afghan-American, for instance, may be put to the service of the imperial machine, and read, therefore, as a supporting document to the U.S. policy on Afghanistan.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the themes of representation and identity in four post-9/11 novels: Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Frédéric Beigbeder’s Windows on the World and Don DeLillo’s Falling Man. The novels of Hosseini and Hamid represent the experience of two Muslim protagonists from Afghanistan and Pakistan who immigrate to the US. The protagonists offer two contrasting understandings of fundamentalism, using this lens to understand the terrorist figure and American society respectively. The construction of power for both the American society and the terrorist is argued to be located in images which are linked to masculinity: money, sport, militancy, sex and religious devotion. The personal experiences of these protagonists reflect the political circumstances which they encounter, and both characters identify with national identities in ways which relate to their readings of representations of identity and news media. Beigbeder and DeLillo’s novels are discussed using the theme of trauma. The novels portray the experiences of American characters who are confronted with 9/11 and suffer from disorientation and loss. The negotiation of this loss takes place in relation to entanglements with the terrorist figure, who penetrates the physical and psychological spaces of these characters. Images of masculinity are evoked in order to signify this loss of power, where the destabilising of the paternal role is linked to the pervasive sense of vulnerability which the characters experience after the attacks. Memorials and rituals become ways of dealing with disorientation. The two novels unsettle the distinction between terrorist and terrorised in order to negotiate a new American identity after 9/11. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek temas van representasie en identiteit in vier post-9/11 romans, naamlik Khaled Hosseini se The Kite Runner, Mohsin Hamid se The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Frédéric Beigbeder se Windows on the World en Don DeLillo se Falling Man. Hosseini en Hamid se romans verbeeld die ervarings van twee Muslim-protagoniste, onderskeidelik afkomstig van Afghanistan en Pakistan wat na die VSA immigreer. Hierdie protagoniste verbeeld twee uiteenlopende beskouïngs van fundamentalisme wat gevolglik aangewend word om die terroris-figuur en die Amerikaanse gemeenskap te verstaan. Die konstruksie van mag vir die Amerikaanse gemeenskap en die terroris-figuur word getoon, is geleë in beelde wat verband hou met manlikheid, naamlik geld, sport, militarisme, seks en toegewydheid. Die persoonlike ervarings van hierdie protagoniste weerspieël die politieke omstandighede waarmee hulle kennis maak. Beide hierdie karakters vereenselwig hulself met nasionale identiteite op grond van hul begrip van representasie van identiteit en die media. Beigbeder en DeLillo se romans word volgens die tema van trauma vergelyk. Hierdie romans beeld die ervarings van Amerikaanse karakters wat met 9/11 gekonfronteer word en met disoriëntasie en verlies worstel, uit. Die oorweging van hierdie verlies vind plaas in verhouding tot ontmoetings met die terroris-figuur wat die fisiese en psigiese ruimtes van hierdie karakters binnedring. Voorstellings van manlikheid word opgeroep om die verlies van mag ten toon te stel. Hierdie verlies van mag word gekenmerk deur die destabilisering van die vaderlike rol tesame met die diepgaande sin van weerloosheid wat die karakters na die aanval ervaar. Gedenktekens en rituele word vervolgens instellings om met die disoriëntasie om te gaan. Uiteindelik problematiseer die twee romans die onderskeid tussen terroris en geterroriseerde om sodoende ’n nuwe Amerikaanse identiteit ná 9/11 tot stand te bring.