Abstract
The paper, through a close analysis of the fictive characters of Changez and Chuck, reads together Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) and H. M. Naqvi’s Home Boy (2009) as pioneering literary texts that highlight the post-9/11 plight of American society plagued with xenophobia, racism and Islamophobia. Both the novels forward the images of the Pakistani expatriates, by fictionalizing their post-9/11 identity transformations, with their fast weakening ties with the host-land [America] as they are compelled to return, like prodigal sons, to their native homeland [Pakistan]. The paper exploits the theoretical observations regarding diasporic identity by the Postcolonial Studies scholars to provide a theoretic framework to guide the discussion of both the novels. The paper concludes that both Changez and Chuck are the prodigal sons whose decisions to return to their homeland are direct results of their inability to anchor in the host-land and wave off the traumas of their nightmarish social experiences as Pakistani expatriates in America in the turbulent times right after 9/11.

Aamer Shaheen,  Muhammad Ayub Jajja. (2019) Post-9/11 America and the Return of the Pakistani Prodigal Sons, The ELF Annual Research Journal, Volume 21, Issue 1.
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