Hybridity, Diaspora, and Global Futures in Contemporary Afghan Literature

Abstract

This modern Afghanistan literature can be seen as a piece of post-colonial writings which reveals the realities of war, migration, globalization and displacement in its culture and social life. These diasporic Afghan writers, like Khaled Hosseini, Atiq Rahimi and Nadia Hashimi, attempt to illustrate the life of people that negotiate identity, memory and belongings in a transnational society. In this study, hybridity, diaspora and the global future are discussed from the point of view of Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall and Edward Said in contemporary Afghan literature and analyze the ways through which these themes are presented by Afghan diasporic authors. Specifically, the writer aims to investigate how Afghan diasporic identities are shaped through fragments, cultural exchanges and reconstruct of the self while migrating and interacting with the modern world, as exemplified by Hosseini's The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And the Mountains Echoed and Sea Prayer. Furthermore, the research seeks to explore the transforming influence of war, migration and exile on individual and collective identity; and how hybrid cultures are built. At the same time, the future world can also be seen through the writing as well as crisis of refugees, cultural maintenance, women justice and human capacity. Through the close reading, this writer asserts that contemporary Afghan literature successfully criticizes the stereotype of Afghanistan, presents a humanistic vision of living in diverse cultures together in the world, and shows that diasporic and hybrid experiences of individuals are not only a form of displacement and loss, but also new chances for the regeneration of cultures, human survival, and forms of identities in the modern globalized world.