Post-9/11 Espionage Fiction in the US and Pakistan: Spies and "Terrorists"

by Cilano; Cara N.

• ISBN13: 9780415684514
• ISBN10: 041568451X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-05-07
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Through an analysis of a variety of US and Pakistani novels and films since 9/11 Cara Cilano focuses on how such fictions construct an understanding of history through the portrayal of two stock characters in the espionage genre: the spy and the spy#xE2;#xAC;"s nemesis, who, in this context, is the religious extremist or fundamentalist. Firstly, the book interrogates how US novels and films, including Mike Nichols#xE2;#xAC;"s film Charlie Wilson#xE2;#xAC;"s War (2007), David Ignatius#xE2;#xAC;"s novel Body of Lies (2007), and Alex Berenson#xE2;#xAC;"s novel The Faithful Spy (2007), refuse to historicize and expose the ideological and historiographic impulses within their narratives, while they also promote a nostalgic view of the US at the same time; second, in order to historicize and to expose the nostalgic parochialism of the US#xE2;#xAC;"s covert activities in these novels#xE2;#xAC;" fictive universes, the book examines the recent appropriation of spy fiction conventions#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;including suspenseful plot structures and pacing, the themes of secrecy and betrayal, and the isolation of the protagonist#xE2;#xAC;#x1D;by Pakistani writers, such as Mohammed Hanif, Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie, and Nadeem Aslam; and, third, this book considers the recent emergence of spy conventions in Pakistani fiction in its own national context so as to evaluate how claims of Pakistan#xE2;#xAC;"s status as a 'failed state' function, especially with respect to how such a status encourages or inhibits affective attachments of whatever kind to Pakistan. .