You Sell Me Out: Representation of Peripheral Pakistan in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Abstract

This paper endeavours to look at the cultural representation of rural Pakistani in Daniyal Mueenuddin's seminal work In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009). Taking the postcolonial framework given by Edward Said and more recently by Graham Huggan and Sarah Brouillette, I argue that this particular work is an instance of global commodification of cultural difference and exchange due to its re-orientalist tendencies. The cultural otherness, so portrayed, becomes an object for alterity industry in which writers participate consciously or unconsciously. Mueenuddin's interviews are used to further nuance the readings of this collection of short stories and his status as a representative Pakistani author to address the issues of being cultural sell-out, different reception in different markets with a particular focus on the Western market and what constitutes 'authentic' in contemporary postcolonial world.

Tenor Analysis of Selected Short Stories by Tariq Rahman: Applying Halliday's Interpersonal Metafunction

“…The masters order them, force them to work for them and send all the crops to masters they have harvested with hard work, and beat them also whenever they want without their crime. The masters' aggression towards masses can be compared to what Nazir et al (2022) explored that the natives are divided into two distinct groups: colonizers and the colonized under the influence of colonization. With the help of the common protagonist (in all stories) Harouni, they found that he became a feudal lord in all stories and exploited socially and culturally both men and women from lower class being a cultural sell-out.…”

“…They do not care for their feelings and emotions rather consider them a puppet. Based on Huggan's notion of contemporary postcolonial representations as often being cultural sell-outs, Nazir, Hussain, and Hussain (2022) explored the selected short stories from the same book to foreground the stereotypical and cultural sell-out for Western audience. The researchers explicate that the natives are divided into two distinct groups: colonizers and the colonized under the influence of colonization.…”