ABSTRACT
As South Asia currently witnesses a series of dramatic geo-political shifts in the region, Third World, diasporic celebrity writers like Salman Rushdie and his oeuvre require our renewed critical-academic attention. It is so not only because such writers “belong” from the region and choose to write almost obsessively about their complicated relationships with the territories, but also because such literary representations hold enormous significance in the overall perception build-up of the concerned countries and its people. Rushdie’s novel Shame dealing with the fictional history of Pakistan is a case in point that invites fresh set of scrutiny, especially in the era of post-Taliban takeover of the neighbouring country of Afghanistan. It is crucial to note that many scholars across the globe seem to believe that Shame can be read as a feminist project. Therefore, my chapter chooses a feminist entry point to understand if the text does justice to the feminist commitment to itself, specifically when Rushdie himself in his many interviews claims to do so. Further, going by a New-Historicist reading, the chapter would attempt to understand if and to what extent the text does justice to the contemporary lived realities and diverse lifeworlds of the real people inhabiting the space that Rushdie modelled his novel upon that is Pakistan.
