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1.TITLE
“Stop Surviving and Start Living”: A study of Pathos of Exile in Exit West, The Other
Hand or Little Bee and Shooting Kabul

2. SUBJECT
The refugee themes in the contemporary selected novels and approaching cultural,
religious, and social differences challenging refugees’ integration process.

3. AIMS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study aims to approach immigration and its reflection in the post-colonial selected
works. Immigrants confront manifold issues; the issues incorporate employment opportunities,
language and communication, shelter, access to local services, transportation, cultural disparities,
children upbringing, prejudice, isolation, climate, and weather challenges. In the literary works,
the idea of immigration is a major theme and enabling to approach it from the perspective of
immigrant literature. This work will focus that while it is challenging for the immigrants, the
indigenous population proportions experience unprecedented problems in the wake of the arrival
of people. Much of it rises from the financial prospects and division of the material resources as
the population upsurges, " […] "immigrant hordes" harm the employment opportunities of
natives "(Borjas 1667). However, as time passes the concerns exceed economic burdens and
influence the cultural fabric of the society. At the same time, the challenges from integration
leading to acceptability concerns are also a part of the wider social spectrum. Both, the
immigrants and indigenous population explore the options conducive for their mutual
understanding and long-term establishment of rapprochement between the culturally different
people. By focusing on the selected works, it will analyze the immigrant literature and their
reflection of the immigrant’s issues while exasperating to settle on a foreign land.
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, The Other Hand or Little Bee by Chris Cleave and Naheed
Hasnat Senzai’s Shooting Kabul will assist analyze the refugee crisis as a theme in English
literature. It will include the rehabilitation, reception, integration, cultural and political
ramifications of the mass migration. It will also focus on the transfer and reception of a new
cultural value/ values in a different fictional society. As Said says that with new people
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“Transplantation, Transference, Circulation, and Commerce” also takes place, presenting a new
cultural discourse never experienced before in the host setting (226). The three works in
discussion have distinct approaches to the question of immigration but they relentlessly portray
refugee crises to a certain degree.
4. METHOD
4.1. Theoretical Framework
Giorgio Agamben1 in his work “Beyond Human Rights" mentions the migrants’
questions that constantly haunt them. The migrants are received by the issues that are
simultaneously urgent in nature and long-lasting— refugees lose the rights as well as the will to
assimilate at all costs and form a new national identity; they are often regarded as countryless
refugees. They think about their condition as a constant cause of suffering. Agamben believes
that the refuges condition defies the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
which encompasses the idea of the French Revolution liberté, égalité, fraternité: which means
that human beings are equal, including in dignity and rights. Human conscience must lead the
way ahead in the spirit of universal brotherhood (UN). Agamben particularly focuses on the
Jewish refugees— however, the modern immigrants are largely Muslims from the war-torn
countries so their state of affairs is undoubtedly, a reflection of the Jewish immigrants. Referring
to Hannah Arendt, Agamben says that refugees travel from their hometowns to various places
only to find themselves in the quagmire of problems hence "refugees driven from their countries
represent the vanguard of their people—if they keep their identity" (Arendt 274). Hence, they
face multiple problems including the concerns of their identity as a culture.
In 2016, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that there were
22.5 million refugees and 65.6 million forcibly displaced people worldwide (UNHCR). With
other problems, the issue of immigrants’ identity presents problems with impacts on the host
society. It has further caused the decline of the idea of the nation-state, “In the predominant
modern conception of the world order, the nation-state is the given basis of identity and culture,
the 'natural' place to live and belong” (Bauman qtd. in Eastmond 162), the influx of refugees
neutralizes their national identity and dilutes it into the pre-nation-state era. The more poignant

1
In 1993, Giorgio Agamben (b. 1942), an Italian political philosopher at the University of Verona, published a text
about the status of the refugee, ‘Beyond Human Rights.
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crises are that of immigrants, who according to Arendt, referring to the conditions of the Jewish
immigrants:
Lost [their] home, which means the familiarity of daily life [they] lost [their]
occupation, which means the confidence that [they] are of some use in this world.
[They] lost our language, which means the naturalness of reactions, the simplicity
of gestures, the unaffected expression of feelings. [They] left [their] relatives in
the Polish ghettos. (264)
Agamben stresses that immigrants erode the traditional political and judicial classifications and
even the idea of the nation-state is challenged, where the promised rights are not entertained and
the common people get threatened. (95) In English Literature, as Oldenburg’s says that the
influence of xenophobia on constructions of national identity opens the door to reimagining
immigrant relations in early modern England and its literature (391). No matter how the
integration process is carried out, Identity travels with the refugee and it is often dual in nature,
as Natalie Friedman believes, “Instead of shedding the trappings of the home culture and
throwing himself headlong into the work of Americanizing, the protagonist of the contemporary
immigrant novel—whether an immigrant or a child born to immigrants—is more concerned with
his or her dual identity” (112).
Immigrants are voiceless in the new land. Agamben argues that human rights are not
exactly the rights that are well-matched with the human rights’ slogans. The status of the refugee
is considered a temporary state. Legally and politically the refugee is left unrepresented and it is
his/her status remains transitory. He states that:
The concept of a refugee must be resolutely separated from the concept of the
'human rights', and the right of asylum (which in any case is by now in the process
of being drastically restricted in the legislation of the European states) must no
longer be considered as the conceptual category (93).
At the new place, the subject is exposed to Naturalization Service and Immigration,
which are all control mechanisms. It includes examinations, language learning, and other
consideration that are important for integration. Hence, the refugee is neutralized and a new
citizen is born, subject to all the factors that he considers mandatory for his acceptably. The
refugee is hence accepted at the cost of evading his past and compliant to the present
transforming the immigrant transfigures from a "denizen" to a "citizen". (96)
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Agamben explores the condition of the refugees and their treatment is a reflection of
modern politics. He further adds that life is dominated by "biopolitics 2”, an idea used by Michel
Foucault, considering that human existence is controlled by a biopolitics. Foucault defines this
idea in his work Homo Sacer as the assimilation of natural life in the mechanisms and
calculations of state power and politics; in such a system the ruling mechanism is carried out by
using statistics as the input for the actions of the government. Agamben argues that biopolitics
started in Europe at the time of the ancient Greeks when the line between human beings was
drawn; known as the natural life or (Zoe) and the lifestyle of a particular form was meant (bios).
Agamben's ideas emphasis on the legal aspects of this argument that he believes, plays a critical
role in the discussion of the politico-constitutional level of the nation-state. The condition of the
immigrants is compared to the state of the "homo sacer", a figure in the ancient Roman law
whose life was worthless, and if anybody murdered them, they would not be sentenced for the
crime; it was not considered an offense in the eyes of the Roman Law. Agamben sees the
uncertainty that exists within the conceptualization of the legal status of a refugee, where he or
she enjoys less or no rights compared to the citizens of the nation-state. This factor nullifies the
status of the people as refugees as the "man", defined under the universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Human rights, cannot bridge the chasm created between these two different coatings of
rights. Describing Hannah Arendt, he says the idea of the birth and citizenship are concurring
ideas. The mere existence as being alive as a refugee does not fulfill the requirements of the
acquisition of all rights that a man is promised. life is constantly changed in the variables of the
state including the slogans of the nation-state, society, law and citizen, and so on so forth. If the
idea of the universality of "human" as human beings is observed, it fades in many ways, and its
status is narrowed down to it as a property of the citizens. (95)
The idea does not outlaw the status of the refugees, rather the subject is assimilated as an
element within the society. Agamben uses this the “inclusive exclusion” in the further
deliberation of the refugee’s status. The refugee gains the status of the unifying system but it
remains hapless and goes through a process of definition and redefinitions, however, the
2
Foucault first used the term ‘‘biopolitics’’ in the 1970s to denote how social and political power is used to
structure and control human life, and his concept and method of analyzing political structures is currently used
across disciplines, including political science.
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definition of the status of the refugees cannot be put in the binary dichotomy. He adds the
life of the refugee is distinct from the life of the permanent resident of the nation-state with
whom the term "citizen" is associated. The people who have just reached in the spectrum of the
nation-state are left unattended by these rights declarations as they do not have a legal status to
advocate their standpoint in the wake of confrontations. The Homo Sacer, at the times of the
Roman Empire, could not live with the citizens. He was asked to remain outside the borders of
the city, like an illegal immigrant or refugee, in the context of the modern world. Homo Sacer
was driven to the edge of the society where he lived in the "black holes". Such figures living in
isolation, among the people, are the "denizens" and to attain the tag of citizenship they must
abide by the cultural, social, and legal codes of the place, sine qua non they are unworthy of any
stature. They have to go through the integration process without which matters security, work,
and insurance would not be given to that person. (90) The status of the homo sacer could be
narrowed down to the idea that almost every single individual, be it in his/ her own country/
state, in life finds the condition of the homo sacer. People are, besides the refugee title, classified
by tagging them with certain titles homosexuals, trespassers, the mentally ill, the unemployed,
blacks, feminists, beggars, the homeless, addicts, artists. To the extent of tagging homo sacer
would be demanding as almost every single individual, be it a citizen of that country state could
be described as a homo sacer; individuals are not different from the status of inclusion and
exclusion that the refugees confront.
The people from the other cultures are a permanent mass of noncitizens in the
industrialized states who do not wish to be and cannot be integrated or repatriated. Mohsin
Hamid puts it more poignantly and describes the immigration as a process through which an
individual compromises certain precious thing in his life; those left behind are theoretically dead
for the refugees: "she was in a sense killing him, but that is the way of things, for when we
migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind" (68). They have their nationalities of
origin, but they do not want to go back to their own states' protection, rather they find themselves
in a permanent status of de facto statelessness. That the nation-states must revisit the
fundamental concepts through which we have defined the political concepts. As Exit West
“depicts London as a place where refugees live in terror, exploited in work camps and subjected
to surveillance (through drones and by citizens turned vigilantes) by the British state” (Popescu
123).
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The nation-state will decline, so will the traditional political-juridical categories/
divisions. Agamben believes refugees reshape the ideas of the nation-state and set limits and
structure of a future political community. Similarly, the fundamental concepts through which the
questions of politically significant ideas are answered, need to be fully revised and reconstructed
for a better outcome for an immigrant society. In the selected texts the counter-argument prevails
that when settlers face hardships, they also face the crucial stage to submit their cultural
background and adopt the new one. The settings in which they give in to their old notions or try
to retain some of the old values will remain imperative segment of this work. It is interesting to
study the slogan refugees raise potentially threaten the fundamentals of the nation state. A
similar idea is propagated by Said in his 1982 essay on “Travelling Theory”; he articulates
transfer of ideas in human culture and society is categorized by two critical aspects: “the
conditions of acceptance” and “resistances”. He further elucidates the excursion of ideas faces
obstructions through its existence. Said labeled the progression of transmigration of the notions
as a voyage for an idea; "Like people and schools of criticism, ideas and theories travel – from
person to person, from situation to situation, from one period to another (Said 226). Said
accentuates the ability of ideas to travel through space and time and their movement and
confrontations with other places and historical events continually shape and reshape it as per the
local conditions of production, reception, transmission, and resistance (227).

Agamben pronounces that the refugee should be considered for what it is, namely,
nothing less than a limit-concept that at once brings a radical crisis to the principles of the
nation-state and clears the way for a revitalization of categories that can no longer be deferred
(94). The states receiving refugees are later confronted by new narratives on all grounds. Said
considers both the cultural and intellectual life of the populace are influenced when new
substances are introduced; they are typically nurtured and often continued by this flow of ideas.
The influence could be both conceded or unconscious, creative borrowing, or wholesale
assumption. At once, the movement of ideas and theories from one place to another is both a fact
of life and a usefully enabling condition of intellectual activity (226). Counter arguing Said’s
approach, Mieke Bal regards that the idea of traveling theory is itself a floating one; he further
explains that the ideas interchange between "disciplines, between individual scholars, between
historical periods, and between geographically dispersed academic communities" (Bal 24). The
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characters under the given circumstances put forward the idea that literature depicts the minute
yet significant nuances that keep evolving with the arrival of the refugees and the transferring of
these factors; it establishes the fact the literature not only realizes the utility of such emotional
and individual issues in the deliberation of refugees' state of affairs but also reiterates the need to
employ policies that could ease the integration process.

Agamben's reiteration to ensure the acceptability of the refugees and acknowledgment

comes but with sacrifices, is the center of the theory. When people travel, they retain their
ideological weaknesses and strengths. Said believes that through periods and situations an idea
or a theory gains or loses; in strength, and whether a theory in one historical period and national
culture becomes altogether different for another period or situation (226). Hence, the entire
concept of cultural affiliations of individuals to a state or society dilute regularly under certain
circumstances. Living or experiencing the given circumstances people usually unconsciously
deal with the strain of losing the identity. In the process of reclaiming the past-self both the
minorities and majorities play their resurgent defiance. The factors that contribute to the
reassessment of the conditions by the immigrants and the indigenous population vary but they
are intrinsically the natural reaction that emerges from the fears that the immigrants bring with
them. The conditions that contribute to the revival of their cultural instincts are mainly socio-
cultural that the people feel unable to receive in their respective lives. Nevertheless, such
tensions usually come to peaceful resolutions bringing Said's traveling theory into effect. The
Eastern idea of "Transcendence" was transported to the West. Similarly, the European ideas
translated and received into the Eastern ideas during the later nineteenth century. This process
was never easy. It needs the support of representation and institutionalization completely
different from the conditions of the origin. “This complicates any account of the transplantation,
transference, circulation, and commerce of theories and ideas” (226).

Said divides these phases into four different categories significant for the traveling of an
idea. The point of the origin of an idea is the first stage; it takes birth from circumstances
supporting it to enter the discourse. Secondly, the distance covered, the passage involves
different contexts as the idea moves from the earlier point to another time and location where it
will gain new status. The third stage is the "conditions-call" which according to Said, are the
conditions of acceptance or an inevitable part of acceptance. Resistance confronts the
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transplanted idea giving it an introduction into a new milieu and toleration "however alien it
might" seem to be. Fourthly, the idea gains transformation and to an extent transformed by the
new uses at different and a novel time and place (229). This work will highlight the instances
wherein such development emerges in the plot development.
The national narrative reiterates the significance of communal memory and the
remembrance of where one belongs to; it can play the role of uniting the people who have a little
more in common (Hansson 216). Ethno-cultural identity takes birth in the mist of civic identity
and it is quite often proven that nationhood is not found on ethnic origin as there is no
unconscious sense of belonging and the individuals feel themselves stranger and estranged when
they are confronting the majority. In such a pursuance, cultural heritage tends to recuperate.
When such narratives build up, they are liable to construct and reconstruct in the present
environments. However, Richard Kearney in his On Stories believes that when such a situation
takes birth it becomes dangerous as people go to extremes like fascism (81). Joe Cleary suggests
that when the states are going through a transition or are under pressure from different fronts
(51).

Migrant concept of nationality tends to question even the fixedness of the idea
“nationality”. In the Exit West, we have the situation wherein the exodus of people gives birth to
the questions related to nationality: "In this group, everyone was foreign, and so, in a sense, no
one was” (74). In fact, “Hamid's use of irrealist and fantastic modes challenges readers to
entertain normative claims about the world. In addition to outlining the potential contributions of
postcolonial fiction to mobilities studies” (Lagji 218). Kearney believes that migrants have their
meaning of nationality and so is the diverse meaning of the concept throughout nations. For
instance, in Swedish language citizenship and nationality are used as synonyms (2-5). This factor
encourages the immigrant inability to use the synonymic relevance of nationality and citizenship.
Such a conflict may also be termed about the idea the one's with the nationality of a certain state,
would not necessarily feel at home considering his/her past. The demographic transition
transforms; David Coleman in his "Immigration and Ethnic Change in Low-Fertility Countries:
A Third Demographic Transition" affirms that even the ancestor of some national populations is
being profoundly changed by mass immigration of individuals from remote states and origins
who carry diverse racial backgrounds. The state of affairs is further challenged by the low
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fertility rate and high immigration (401-66). Behavioral changes especially in terms of sexual
behavior and childbearing get influenced by the migration (Lesthaeghe and Surkyn 325). Eastern
and European societies have their distinctive approaches to the issue at stake. When migrating
different factors contribute to the decision making, however, while staying in these countries
challenges the cultural and moral tones of these people. American Senator Alan Simpson
concluded a legislation with the following statement: "Finally, this legislation is not unneeded.
Some have claimed that more immigration—both legal and illegal—is what this country needs.
Anyone who believes that has not been listening to taxpayers who are being adversely affected—
for example, by welfare abuse, schools that are overcrowded and beset by demands for
'multicultural' curricula, rising crime and expensive, time-consuming deportation procedures.
Both the Senate and House bills tackle the problem in a rational, sensible, and fairway, one that
advances the interests of most of our citizens—and thus our national interest" (qtd.in Simpson).
Similarly, sexual behaviour and cultural taboos concerning it are different from the first world
states. Both males and females confront the moral and cultural dilemmas in terms of their
previous feelings and now with more aggressive opposition living in the host society. In the Exit
West, Nadia tends to challenge the patriarchal despotisms in the wake of their arrival in the
western cities. As Betsy L. Fisher says “Nadia sought integration and connection with refugees
of other nationalities, while Saeed sought solace from their co-nationals” (1122). In this work,
such characters will be focused considering the changes taking place in terms of their approach
and their relative changes taking place while moving from one place to another. When Nadia
invites Saeed, there is a hint of empowerment in her tone: "I am not saying I want your hands on
me." "No. Of course." Saeed's expression had grown traumatized. But Nadia nodded. And while
her eyes were warm, she did not smile" (23). The new society gives a chance to the women to
initiate a debate over the rights of women in the "western" context. Such a detailed view of the
text enables understanding the issues of the women immigrants, and their concerns dealing with
a new form of life on a foreign land.

The life of illegal immigrants in the UK is the main theme of the novel Little Bee, which
is according to Chris Cleave partially based on the life of an asylum seeker, who is denied
asylum in the UK, leading to killing of himself and advising his son to remain a committed
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citizen. He commits suicide feeling that the authorities will let his son in the UK. 3 (Cleave)
Besides the issues of illegal immigrants, the writer focuses on the continuous probe into the idea
of human rights identity and nationality of the immigrants. Rosenheim says that Little Bee is an
equally topical story, in this case, the collision of worlds caused when a Nigerian asylum seeker,
the eponymous Little Bee, seeks refuge with middle-class Englishwoman living in a prosperous
suburb of London (32). On a similar note, the "dream back to Nigeria" resurges the immobility
of both mind or physique and soul even after leaving one's birthplace. The characters mostly
remain attached to their past. Little Bee is a “fertile ground for exploring the ethical and political
grounds on which cross-cultural encounters take place” (90). There is a girl with no name
reaffirms the idea that the girl has no identity in the middle of an alien land. The major recurring
notions are equally supported by tangible small behavioural problems that come with the
introduction of a new environment: the behaviour of the taxi driver and the treatment of refugees
in the detention centers both are significant in the representation of refugee crises. Besides, the
novel portrays sufferings of females in particular. Little Bee says:
I remember she told me her story once and it went something like, the men came
and they-/
burned-my-village-/tied-my-girls-/raped-my-girls-/took-my-girls-/whippedmy-
husband-/cut-my-breast-/I-ran-away-/through the-bush-/found-a-ship-/crossed-the
sea-/ and-then-they-put-me-in-here. Or some such story like that … All the girls’
stories started out, the-men-came-and-they. And all of the stories finished, and-
then-they-put-me-in-here. (qtd. in Goldberg 60)
Referring to the above-mentioned statement Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, the writer of
“GENDERING HUMAN RIGHTS AND THEIR VIOLATION A Reading of Chris Cleave’s
Little Bee”, says that it depicts the global violence against women—including thugs, government
officials, official representatives of the law mandated to secure the nation states of the world (60)
Mental anxiety or psychological discomfort occupies the lives of the people in the
selected characters. In The Little Bee, for six months, every day the central character feels to kill
3
In an interview, Chris cleave mentions that “In 2001 an Angolan man named Manuel Bravo fled to England and claimed asylum on the
grounds that he and his family would be persecuted and killed if they were returned to Angola. He lived in a state of uncertainty for four years
pending a decision on his application. Then, without warning, in September 2005 Manuel Bravo and his 13-year-old son were seized in a dawn
raid and interned at an Immigration Removal Centre in southern England. They were told that they would be forcibly deported to Angola the
next morning. That night, Manuel Bravo took his own life by hanging himself in a stairwell. His son was awoken in his cell and told the news.
What had happened was that Manuel Bravo, aware of a rule under which unaccompanied minors cannot be deported from the UK, had taken
his own life in order to save the life of his son. Among his last words to his child were: “Be brave. Work hard. Do well at school.”
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herself because of the pathetic situation in the detention center wherein exploitation of all sorts is
taking place. Yevette, Little Bee's companion, has sex with the officer in the detention center to
have her name remove from the inmates of the detention center. Moreover, the time they spend
in Nigeria is more dismal than the situation in the UK. Little Bee's sister is raped, her body is
smashed against the boat continuously until every bone in her body is broken and she is finally
killed. More significantly, the immigrants tend to live when they arrive in the UK "even for a girl
like me […] there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living" (234). Certain
examples will help build a wider perspective on the issue of refugees.
The refugees are driven by different factors. Little Bee has a different sort of refugee
crisis; the Nigerian people feel that the Nigerian natural resources are exploited and that has led
to such a state of affairs and it leads to civil conflicts within the country due to rampant
corruption. In Little Bee, it leads to "one grisly outbreak in an off-the-radar oil war" (Seaman 24).
However, when people like Little Bee, the character, request for help they have to prove multiple
standards for their reception in the developed countries or the exploitative states with huge
economies: they have to speak their acceptable accent and her nuances of Nigerian accent are not
welcomed at all. For that reason, she resorts to changing her identity and learns the "Queen's
English" at the detention center in Essex to forget her own. Furthermore, she arrives at the age of
fourteen without any legal document, kept with the aged people in the detention center. "Pound"
appears as a "sorcerer" to the young immigrant; it has all the tricks to control and outdo the
problems in the world. It could disguise itself as power, property and a means to ease the
troubles. The reconstruction of Little Bee's idea of the pound embodies the desires of comfort
that the immigrants lack in their lives back home. This aspect will help understand more intricate
concerns of the immigrants including the financial and security concerns on the top of the list.
However, the more demeaning conjecture is the inability to integrate and get half as many human
rights as the people of the nation-states. Though the "pound" and its role are merely a reflection
of the teenage girl's thoughts on the manipulative power of money, it is a blatant display of
refugees' wishes to attain financial security in the first place. In short to her, "MOST DAYS I
WISH I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl" (19). Similarly, those with more
financial assistance in terms of bank balance and investment prospects get more vigorously
welcomed in the states where people seek refuge. The central character says that "A girl like me
gets stopped at immigration, but a pound can leap the turnstiles, and dodge the tackles of those
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big men with their uniform caps, and jump straight into a waiting airport taxi. Where to, sir?
Western Civilization, my good man, and make it snappy" (22). On a similar note, Perkin believes
that "Western lives are thrown into stark contrast against the terrifying realities of war-torn
Africa" (Perkins 77).
KJ Möller says that Shooting Kabul Narrates the feelings of the children who are left
unrepresented in the immigrant societies (61). Shooting Kabul is the novel of a young girl left
behind after war breaks in Afghanistan. The family later lives in Fremont known as Little Kabul;
they live with the memory of 6-year-old family member Mariam, left in the quagmire of
Afghanistan. The story is narrated by Fadi who views himself as the cause of Mariam's loss. The
young narration reflects the experience of family migration, a middle-schooler, trying hard to
adjust to his new life in America. There are two sides to the experiences: the life lived in Kabul
Afghanistan and consequent happenings when the family travels to the USA. Fadi's ailing
mother and the islamophobia at the school occupy most of the thoughts in his life. The idea to
retrieve his sister from Afghanistan comes after he wins a photography leading to a trip to India
and from there to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The novel deals with the refugees in The US
with an uneasy life. Fadi's professor father is only able to find work as a driver and his sister
works at a fast-food cafe. His mother remains mostly unwilling. However, the most significant
thing is the Afghan neighborhood and nearness of the family members. As a child growing up in
the town Fadi often faces aggression and troubles dealing with the young children of his class.
"Look! It's Osama," a classmate of him calls him. At the same time, the multicultural
environment allows him to befriend Anh, a Vietnamese girl.
The close-knit Afghan immigrants in the US get in the limelight after the 9/11. The
immature reader or the younger generation may feel incongruity referring to the post-USSR
invasion of Afghanistan refugees and the islamophobia existing after the 9/11. The people from
Afghanistan are tagged refugees undoing their capacities and participation in the USA social
fabric. Hence, all have one single definition by the indigenous population as refugees and the
Afghans tend to define themselves as one "No one is perfect. We have all made mistakes -
Pukhtuns, Tajiks, and others. We need to come together as Afghans now, for the sake of our
country" (256). The refugees live in the USA but they look back to Afghanistan as their identity;
the immigrant community in the US is significantly influenced by the events taking place in
Afghan political scenarios. They do not want to carry the stigma of their past but they are
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frequently approached but their past through different means. Willy-nilly, for the refugees, Islam
transforms into their religion-cum-identity in the USA.
The writer experiments with the exposition of a young child living in the US, a country
welcoming foreigner openheartedly. However, it is not simply a physical migration that is
challenging. For instance, the refugee child finds it difficult to eat the food that is served at the
school. Even the references to the landlocked state have tendencies to reflect the writer's ability
to deal with the indefatigable yearning of the child's cultural past to draw him back to the world
he left. Senzai's work digs deeper into the issues when the hustle and bustle with the basic needs
fulfilled and security comparatively optimized, do not fulfill the gap left-back in war-torn
Afghanistan. There are assumptions the reader may deduce from their condition that even, at
times, the financial and security concerns seem less valuable in the comparative context of one's
heritage and home. In such cases the immigrants try to revive their past through different means,
at times, challenging the local cultural values. It not only describes individual characters and
concerns concerning a new way of life, but the collective communal response to the issue is
made inquisitive for the reader. Hence, age and individual and collective responses drive most of
the interest. Mother is taken to the bed, father resorts to hard work for a better tomorrow for the
children, his sister Noor works in a cafeteria, and he is exposed to the milieu of the school. Fadi's
character appears as a determined viewer, who feels " though he were hidden behind a camera
lens, watching another world whirl past in shattered fragments" (117). The novel contributes to
the idea that immigrant literature reveals the intensity through which the refugees go through in
pursuit of an enabling life and security. As Janet C. Richards suggests that, Shooting Kabul is a
novel that represents exemplary multicultural literature with a strong child character “carns more
than what he desires” and “makes life changing decisions” (64). Senzai, explores the life, zooms
in and zooms out the life events through bringing the central character to his past, and a home in
Afghanistan. The shattered fragments of the lost world create Fadi's existence, and keep
challenging him in his new way of life.
The desire to reach a safe country resounds in the minds of millions of refugees across
the globe. War-torn states force the people to leave their homes in search of a better future for
themselves. Exit West, The Other Hand Little Bee, and Shooting Kabul put forward the refugees’
gloomy state-of-affairs when they settle a new world, accompanied by substantial cultural
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differences and compromises. Agamben’s theory in particular will help us analyze the selected
texts as documents of refugee crises in the second decade of the 21st-century literature.
4.2. Research Problems
a. How the writers approach Exit West, The Other Hand/ Little Bee, and Shooting Kabul as
works based on refugee crises?
b. What are the respective differences and similarities of the writers’ dealing with the
problems/issues of refugees?
c. How difficult it gets for the characters and family members to integrate into a new
society? And,
d. Do the refugees get the basic human rights with their own cultural identities or they have
to modify to an extent for acceptance?
4.3. Research Hypothesis
With the growing need to address the global refugees' issues, the selected works provide the
literary response to the pre and post-migration issues including the social economic and cultural
response of the host communities.
4.4 Assumptions
The assumptions are that
a. The works have contemporary burning issues of refugees with individual and social
implications/ consequences.
b. The refugees’ mindsets change to a degree but they retain some intrinsic nuances of their
previous cultural life.
c. The hosts begin to resist the arrival of new cultural values and feel threatened culturally,
financially, religiously, resulting in hostility towards the refugees and vice versa.
d. The thematic and theoretical approach to the problem of immigration in the selected
literary works will reflect the refugee crises as a whole.
4.5. The Delimitations
a. It will not include a comprehensive study of refugee crises as a global issue, rather it will
only focus the texts selected for the purpose and textual references accommodating the
argument.
b. Data analysis will not be quantitative in approach. However, the number of refugees and
their numerical significance will only be utilized, if concerns the text.
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c. Agamben’s theory will be applied to the texts Exit West, The Other Hand/ Little Bee, and
Shooting Kabul. It will not include a detailed reference to other novels, but to support the
argument of the selected text/ texts.
d. Since the selected works are relatively new in literature, articles and books may be
arduous to find.
4.6. Data Analysis
The dissertation will develop an argument based on
a. Content analysis of the books and articles dealing with immigration as a theme in
Literature. The center of the discussion will be the works selected for the endeavor: Exit
West, The Other Hand /Little Bee, and Shooting Kabul.
b. Theoretical bases would be Giorgio Agamben’s work “Beyond The Human Rights",
references to the ideas of "denizens" and "citizens". The problems of refugees in the
nation-state. Also, "Travelling Theory" by Edward Said will be employed to understand
the traveling of cultural and social values and outcomes in the new host communities.
Essentially, it will utilize Agamben's and Said's respective ideas to draw a parallel sketch
of "human rights" and traveling of cultures in the post immigration milieu of the selected
works.

1. Outline
The organization of the dissertation will be as follows
o In the Introduction, there will be a brief synopsis of the immigrant literature and refugee
crises as two contemporary important factors in human life.
o The next chapters will take each selected text, one by one.
o Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
o The Other Hand /Little Bee by Chris Cleave
o Shooting Kabul by Naheed Hasnat Senzai
o There will be a conclusion chapter analyzing the findings, assumptions, and propositions
for future research possibilities in the academic arena concerning the topic in discussion.

2. Duration
Activity Time
Choosing the topic of the thesis February 2020
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Literature Review March 2020

Reading of the primary and secondary sources April-May 2020
Presentation of the Thesis Proposal June 2020
Close Reading and the Analysis of the June-August 2020
Primary Texts
Writing and Production of the Thesis September 2020 to June 2021

3. Bibliography
Primary Sources
Cleave, Chris. The Other Hand/ Little Bee. Sceptre, 2008.
Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West. Penguin Books, 2018.
Senzai, N. H. Shooting Kabul. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2011.
Secondary Sources

Agamben, Giorgio. “Beyond Human Rights.” Social Engineering, edited by Jorinde Seijdel, vol.
15, NAi Publishers, 2008, pp. 90–95.

Arendt, Hannah, et al. “We Refugees.” The Jewish Writings, Schocken Books, 2007.

Borjas, George J. “The Economics of Immigration.” Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 32, no.
4, 1994, pp. 1667–1717. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2728791. Accessed 5 June 2020.

Cleave, Chris. “Author Q&A.” Chriscleave.com. 15 June 2011 https://chriscleave.com/little-

bee/the-true-story-behind-my-new-novel/

Coleman, David. “Immigration and Ethnic Change in Low-Fertility Countries: A Third

Demographic Transition.” Population and Development Review, vol. 32, no. 3, 2006, pp.
401–446. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20058898. Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

Eastmond, Marita. "Nationalist discourses and the construction of difference: Bosnian Muslim
refugees in Sweden." Journal of refugee studies 11.2 (1998): 161-181.
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Fisher, Betsy L. “Doors to Safety: Exit West, Refugee Resettlement, and the Right to
Asylum.” Michigan Law Review, vol. 117, no. 6, Apr. 2019, pp. 1119–1134. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=136694563&authtype=athens.

Friedman, Natalie. "From Hybrids to Tourists: Children of Immigrants in Jhumpa Lahiri's The
Namesake." Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 50.1 (2008): 111-128.

Goldberg, Elizabeth Swanson. "Gendering Human Rights and Their Violation: A Reading of
Chris Cleave’s Little Bee." The Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights.
Routledge, 2018. 60-68.

Hansson, Heidi. “Anne Enright and Postnationalism in the Contemporary Irish Novel.” Irish
Literature Since 1990: Diverse Voices, edited by Scott Brewster and Michael Parker,
Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2009, pp. 216–231. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0rxk.16. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.

Joe Cleary, Literature, Partition, and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel
and Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 51

Kearney, Richard. On Stories. Routledge, 2002.

Kearney, Richard. Postnationalist Ireland Politics, Culture, Philosophy. Routledge, 1997.

Lagji, Amanda. “Waiting in Motion: Mapping Postcolonial Fiction, New Mobilities, and
Migration through Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.” Mobilities, vol. 14, no. 2, Apr. 2019, pp.
218–232. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/17450101.2018.1533684.

Oldenburg, Scott. Alien Albion: literature and immigration in early modern England. University
of Toronto Press, 2014.

Perkins, Christine. “Little Bee.” Library Journal, vol. 134, no. 1, Jan. 2009, p. 77.

Popescu, Maria-Irina, and Asma Jahamah. “‘London Is a City Built on the Wreckage of Itself’:
State Terrorism and Resistance in Chris Cleave’s Incendiary and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit
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West.” London Journal, vol. 45, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 123–145. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/03058034.2019.1687203.

Richards, Janet C. "Creating and sharing annotated bibliographies: One way to become familiar
with exemplary multicultural literature." Reading Improvement 52.2 (2015): 61-69.

Rosenheim, Andrew. “The Fiction of Prophecy.” Publishers Weekly, vol. 255, no. 47, Nov.
2008, p.32.

Savu, LauraE. “Bearing Wit(h)Ness: ‘Just Emotions’ and Ethical Choices in Chris Cleave’s
Little Bee.” Critique, vol. 55, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 90–102. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/00111619.2012.656207.

Seaman, Donna. “Little Bee.” Booklist, vol. 105, no. 8, Dec. 2008, p. 24.

UN. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Ohchr.org,

www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf.

United Nations, UNHCR. “UNHCR, GLOBAL TRENDS: FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN

2016.” UNHCR, 2016, www.unhcr.org/5943e8a34.pdf [perma.cc/WWP5-6K2X].

Möller, Karla J. "Mirrors and windows through literature featuring Arabs, Arab Americans, and
people of Islamic faith." Journal of Children's Literature 40.2 (2014): 65