'Post'-9/11 South Asian Diasporic Fiction

While much of the critical discussion about the emerging genre of 9/11 fiction has centred on the trauma of 9/11 and on novels by EuroAmerican writers, this book draws attention to the diversity of what might be meant by "post" -9/11 by exploring the themes of uncanny terror through a close reading of "post" -9/11 South Asian diasporic fictions. The novels surveyed include Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, Hari Kunzru's Transmission, Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundementalist. Pei-chen Liao examines how these writers represent the return of the repressed and the post-9/11 unhomely migrant experience. She argues that 9/11 is not only an American national trauma or a terrorist attack on the West, but that its aftermath also manifests the transnational and transcultural emotional transmission of terror and fear. She also discusses the diversity of the post-9/11 condition in terms of the ways that the writers think beyond 9/11 and treat the terrorist moment on 11 September as an exemplary incident that allows different temporalities and a range of personal, political, cultural, racial and gender issues to appear.