You Sell Me Out: Representation of Peripheral Pakistan in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Abstract

This paper endeavours to look at the cultural representation of rural Pakistani in Daniyal Mueenuddin’s seminal work In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009). Taking the postcolonial framework given by Edward Said and more recently by Graham Huggan and Sarah Brouillette, I argue that this particular work is an instance of global commodification of cultural difference and exchange due to its re-orientalist tendencies. The cultural otherness, so portrayed, becomes an object for alterity industry in which writers participate consciously or unconsciously. Mueenuddin’s interviews are used to further nuance the readings of this collection of short stories and his status as a representative Pakistani author to address the issues of being cultural sell-out, different reception in different markets with a particular focus on the Western market and what constitutes ‘authentic’ in contemporary postcolonial world.