The paper presents a Postcolonial critique of Rajia Hassib’s novel A Pure Heart (2019) by analyzing the text as a restatement of the Postcolonial discourse in the 21st century. The Postcolonial discourse has been traced in the text based on the chief canons of neocolonial theory as explained by Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi K Bhabha. Hassib, as a diaspora writer, seems to be reiterating the concepts of cultural hybridity and emphasizing the confines of diaspora literature due to its incapability to commiserate across the limitations of cultural and ethnic discrepancies. The possibilities of cultural co-existence are there but they are based on the idea of respect, willingness to understand, self-love and openness to others. Through a reflection on colonization and imperialism, Hassib’s discourse tries to shatter the Western canonical misrepresentative discourses about Islam as manifested in the practices of extremists and Muslim Brotherhood. She reflects on different versions of Islam as shown by different characters. Hassib celebrates her culture but at the same time shows how a person tries to adapt to a new culture. Hassib tries to construct a third space of hybridity. However, the hybridity she represents is obscure as the main character is caught in perpetual exile. Hassib aims at cultural understanding and believes that it lessens the gap between civilizations and reconstructs a better world devoid of hatred and extremism. The novel develops a standpoint that reaffirms respect for otherness and fighting marginality.

Authors:
Rasha Osman Abdel Haliem, The Higher Technological Institute & AMIDEAST, Egypt

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Rasha Osman Abdel Haliem is a University Postdoctoral Fellow or Instructor at The Higher Technological Institute & AMIDEAST in Egypt

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