Intimate Others: Utopia and Heterotopia in the Reluctant Fundamentalist and the Submission

Abstract

The Submission and The Reluctant Fundamentalist invest in the strategic ambivalence that characterizes heterotopias. Steering away from trauma studies I concentrated on the possibilities the concept of heterotopia offers to understanding the multilayered content and symbolism of the two post 9/11 novels. Heterotopia as a Foucauldian concept established spaces that are ‘other’ in relation to a normal space. I extend that other space to include Muslims as belonging to a heterotopic garden from which they challenge an Islamophobic and divisive discourse that is affiliated to power and uses the popular media and grievances of the 9\11 families to further cut off Muslims from contribution to mainstream society.