Post 9/11 Trauma and Memory Mapping: A Neocortical Reading of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Abstract

This paper discusses how post-9/11 trauma is depicted in The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid through the prism of memory and narrative cognition. The novel holds value in the post-9/11 and postcolonial literature studies. Although the vast majority of current studies cover the issues of political ideology, identity, and cultural conflict, the cognitive aspect of trauma has not been addressed properly. This paper fills that gap by discussing the impact of trauma on memory, spatial cognition, and narrative in the text. The research intends to understand the expression of trauma in terms of impaired memory functions, especially spatial memory mapping and narrative fragmentation. The study is guided by the Neurocognitive Trauma Memory Theory (NCTMT), which is based on a qualitative neurocritical close reading approach to the selected passages of the novel. The results show that the trauma in the novel is coded in the form of disjointed narration, place-based memory, time discontinuity, and emotional ambivalence. This paper claims that The Reluctant Fundamentalist is the thematic and cognitive expression of post-9/11 trauma, which demonstrates that trauma distorts memory and narrative. These results are relevant to the disciplines of literature and trauma studies, as they offer a neurocognitively based perspective on post-9/11 literature and how novels can enact trauma cognitively rather than only thematically. The methodology broadens the scope of literary analysis with the prism of memory, space, and narrative cognition, providing innovative information about the intersection of literature and neuroscience.