ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the novels’ ambivalence towards globalization helps to challenge stereotypes about Muslims that have been prevalent in the global media since 9/11, and encourages new, more interconnected ways of thinking about the many histories of which the war on terror is a part. The Wasted Vigil identifies a kind of ‘thwarting’ of itineraries at the heart of the conflict that underpins the war on terror. Each novel presents a vision for Pakistani identity that transcends the nation’s frequent reduction to its Islamic and Islamist elements in the global news media, emphasising both its historicity and its place in a complicated post-9/11 geopolitical context. Throughout the novel Mohsin Hamid attempts to make the reader feel a similarly patronising sense of overdetermination, or in other words, a feeling that a restrictive, stereotypical sense of identity is being projected onto her by the narrator.
