SELLING OTHERNESS: A REORIENTALIST ANALYSIS OF SLUM CHILD BY BINA

SHAH
The topic of my research, as above indicated would be dealing with the main theme of ‘selling
otherness’.
Post-colonial literature and particularly South-Asian literature in general have been very popular
across the globe. Their worth can be realized from the fact that they are included in a separate
category. Although it is believed that the south Asian literature provides a new dimension, or a
globalized theme/ideas to the existing literature, but it is also a fact that these pieces of literature
are primarily written for the selling purpose. There are aesthetic dimensions with this literature,
but the primarily factor/ aim of all these writers who write these works write for the purpose of
selling e.g. Salman Rushdi, Bapsi Sidhwa, Mohsin Hamid etc.
The writers e.g. Bina Shah and others who are writing these Anglophonic literature, they are
writing merely for the purpose of selling. It is believed that this literature is written for the
western audience, and they fuse their literature with all those ideas, all those dimensions which
the western literature have in their mind. Although these writers are bred and born in Europe,
they are living in Europe, they hardly spend any quality time in their native country, yet they
write about the stereotypical topics of Pakistan. And the mere purpose of theirs is the selling
purpose.
A famous critic Lisa Lau has pointed out that these writers actually try to portray the concept of
re-orientalism within their work. The concept of re-orientalism means that Orientalism has
emerged again. So, these writers who are basically Orientalists they are presenting the Eastern
Culture and specifically the stereotypical dimension of Eastern Culture to the West, and they are
doing so only because they want their work to be recognized internationally, just for fame they
are portraying the concept of re-orientalism.
I will be taking the novel Slum Child written by Bina Shah in 2010 and will justify how the
concept of re-orientalism has been portrayed in the novel.
Slum Child is the story of a girl forced to run alone, and courageous, to a future that cannot deny
her happiness.