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Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns as a Child-Rescue and Neo-Orientalist Narrative

2017; Purdue University Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.7771/1481-4374.3057

1481-4374

Abdullah M. Dagamseh, Olga V. Golubeva,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

In their article "Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns as a Child-Rescue and Neo-Orientalist Narrative" Abdullah Mohammad Dagamseh and Olga Golubeva argue that the novel contrib­utes to hegemonic Eurocentric discourse by showing the superiority and benevolence of the West. In contrast to existing scholarly focus on Hosseini's portrayal of female characters, this article highlights how children of both sexes are represented. The authors' aim is to show how Hosseini's picture of children affected by war contributes to the neo-Orientalist and child-rescue discourses, jus­tifying the foreign involvement in Afghanistan's internal affairs. Moreover, Dagamseh and Golubeva argue that the use of universal values and the seemingly noble cause of bettering the lives of children in Afghanistan contribute to the stereotypical discourse of a "progressive" West and an "underdevel­oped" East.