An Exotic View of Contemporary Pakistan: Re-Orientalism in Nadeem Aslam’s <i>The Golden Legend</i>

Abstract

This study situates Nadeem Aslam’s novel The Golden Legend (2017) in the broader context of re-Orientalism and postcolonial theories to unravel the complex issues concerning the identity of the Christian community living in contemporary postcolonial Pakistan. The study aims at critically examining its portrayal of Christian community and narrative structure as well as the socioeconomic context in which the novel is set. It is investigated how Aslam employs exoticisms to show poverty and marginality of the Christian community in a country faced with religious extremism, intolerance, and discrimination against religious minorities in an over-simplifying and dramatising manner. The juxtaposition of re-Orientalism and staged marginality enables a deeper comprehension of the interplay between social injustice, collective struggle, and the agency of individuals resulting in partially imaging the communities in question.