AMBIQUITY OF COLONIAL-AFGHAN AGENCY IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S THE KITE RUNNER AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED A POSTCOLONIAL READING

Authors

  • Tushar Sharma Senior Research Fellow, Department of Humanities, Deenbandhu Choturam University of Science and Technology, Murthal, India
  • Dr. Sujata Rana Professor, Department of Humanities, Deenbandhu Choturam University of Science and Technology, Murthal, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i2s.2026.7110

Keywords:

Afghan agency, Khaled Hosseini, Western Exceptionalism

Abstract [English]

This article explores Khaled Hossieni’s The Kite Runner and the Mountains Echoed in the context of responsibility to respond on behalf of Afghanistan post 9/11 or reinforces colonial hegemonies. It suggests that while Hosseini’s both novels capture that socio-cultural problems like gender, ethnicity and religious extremism in the graveyard of empires. Although the novels oscillate between western exceptionalism and Afghan agency, I argue that the creates an ambiguous identity.

References

Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783–790. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.783 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.783

Ahmed, S. (2014). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748691142 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748691142

Barfield, T. (2010). Afghanistan: A Political and Cultural History. Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691145686.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691145686.001.0001

Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The Location of Culture. Routledge.

Boehmer, E. (2005). Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation. Manchester University Press. https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719068782.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9780719068782.001.0001

Cole, T. (2012, March 21). The White-Savior Industrial Complex. The Atlantic.

Dabashi, H. (2012). The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism. Zed Books. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350222946 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350222946

Damrosch, D. (2003). What Is World Literature? Princeton University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691188645

Fanon, F. (2004). The Wretched of the Earth (R. Philcox, Trans.). Grove Press.

Farmer, P. (2004). Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. University of California Press.

Gunew, S. (2009). Subaltern Empathy: Beyond European Cosmopolitanism. In M. R. Thomsen (Ed.), Postcolonial Translocations: Cultural Representation and Critical Spatial Thinking (39–51). Rodopi.

Hosseini, K. (2003). The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books.

Hosseini, K. (2013). And the Mountains Echoed. Riverhead Books.

Huggan, G. (2001). The Postcolonial Exotic: Marketing the Margins. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420102 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420102

Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with Patriarchy. Gender and Society, 2(3), 274–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124388002003004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/089124388002003004

Mamdani, M. (2004). Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books.

Milani, A. (2006). The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. World Literature Today, 80(3), 76–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/40158941 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/40158941

Mitra, S. (2016). Afghanistan's Histories in Khaled Hosseini's Novels: Trauma, Nostalgia, and Postcolonial Textuality. Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, 10(1), 113–129.

Mitra, S. (2016). The Kite Runner and the Problem of Legibility: Afghan Narratives and the Politics of Compassion. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 47(2–3), 115–139. https://doi.org/10.1353/ari.2016.0017 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ari.2016.0015

Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384649 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384649

Rice, A. (2010). Dislocating Subjects: The Fiction of Khaled Hosseini. Research in African Literatures, 41(4), 59–71. https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2010.41.4.59

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Vintage Books.

Said, E. W. (2000). Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Harvard University Press.

Salem, H. (2013). Marketing Misery: Representing Afghanistan after 9/11. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 49(2), 192–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2012.738454

Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press.

Spivak, G. C. (1994). Can the Subaltern Speak? In P. Williams and L. Chrisman (Eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader (66–111). Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Walia, H. (2013). Undoing Border Imperialism. AK Press.

Downloads

Published

2026-03-28

How to Cite

Sharma, T., & Rana, S. (2026). AMBIQUITY OF COLONIAL-AFGHAN AGENCY IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S THE KITE RUNNER AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED A POSTCOLONIAL READING. ShodhKosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts, 7(2s), 220–228. https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v7.i2s.2026.7110