Abstract
The current study explores and evaluates the discursive
representation of the Afghan national identity in Khaled
Hosseini’s (2009) novel: A Thousand Splendid Suns. It also
seeks to address how the novelist represents the Afghan nation
in his work. The selected data is analysed from critical discourse
studies perspective, and Fairclough’s (1989) dialecticalrelational approach to critical discourse analysis, especially
description stage of his model regarding text/textual analysis, is
applied for the analysis of the selected discourses on the Afghan
national identity. The study concludes that the novelist as an
Afghan-born American has associated various virtues and vices
to the Afghans, such as pride, firmness, valour, fearlessness,
hospitality, honour, dare/venture, challenge, help, slight
recklessness, patriotism, rapid acquaintance-making, loyalty,
love, care, courage, cultural richness, loud talking,
independence-loving, exaggeration, defending nature, freedomfighting, melancholy, war-affectedness and double standard of
the Afghan men. However, racism, ethnic nationalism, gender
and ethnic discrimination have been associated with the Afghans
like the Taliban and the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns. The
novelist’s representation of the Taliban and the tribal and
traditionalist Pashtuns as racist and ethnic nationalist is
exaggeratory, biased and political because ground reality, geopolitical and the socio-political history of Afghanistan manifest
that the racial and ethnic prejudice, discrimination and
inequality always circulate in almost all the Afghan ethnic
groups with varying degrees.
Rab Nawaz Khan. (2017) Representation of the Afghan National Identity in Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Dialogue, Volume 12, Issue 1.
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