ABSTRACT
The chapter critically explores the lived experiences of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death by hanging over a cup of water. Her memoir Blasphemy helps to understand the complex intersection of religion and gender when it comes to accusing a woman of a minority community for insulting Islam. My study offers an analysis of the blasphemy law of Pakistan and how it is misused to generate violence in the name of religion. Her memoir plays a pivotal role in registering her suffering as well as protest. She questioned the role of the nation and its judicial systems and pointed out its failure in securing the basic human rights. The chapter examines the generic features of memoir and reveals that the book has some complex dynamics of representation. The suffering of Asia has been commodified strategically. The book is circulated by the Western publishers as the narrative of “exotic” cultural and social practice of the East. Though Blasphemy shows the complexities of representation, process of exoticization and the commodification of the narrative, the book establishes itself as a narrative of protest. Asia Bibi has come to be, as this chapter argues, a representative of the Third World feminists. She contributes significantly to the resistance movement of women in Pakistan.
