Post-9/11 Espionage Fiction in the US and Pakistan

As the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath influence new developments in spy fiction as a popular genre, an examination of these literary narratives concerned with espionage and terrorism can reshape our approach to non-fictive representations of the same concerns.


Post-9/11 Espionage Fiction in the US and Pakistan examines post-9/11 American spy fictions alongside Pakistani novels that draw upon many of the same figures, tropes, and conventions. As the Pakistani texts re-place spy fiction’s conventions, they offer another vantage point from which to view the affective appeals common to these conventions’ usual deployment in American texts. This book argues that the appropriation by Pakistani writers of these conventions insistently tracks how the formulaic and popular nature of post-9/11 American espionage thrillers forwards and reinforces "appropriate" affective responses, often linked to domestic sites and relations, to "terrorism." It also analyses and compares American and Pakistani representations of the twinned figures of the spy (or his proxy) and the "terrorist," a term frequently conflated with fundamentalist. The insights of these analyses can serve as interpretive interruptions of non-fictive representations of Pakistani-US "war on terror" relations.

Offering an innovative analysis of the reflection of narrative conventions in our view of the real-life events, this book will attract scholars with an interest in Pakistani literature, Postcolonial literature, Asian Studies and Terrorism studies.