“Because the past claws its way out”: Home and Memory in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner

Abstract

The concept of ‘home’ is indispensable to the study of diaspora. It raises imperative questions of identity and belonging. It also brings into discussion the notions of acculturation, sense of alienation and displacement, assimilation, exclusion, memory, nostalgia, etc. As diasporic texts essentially address the notions of dislocation, migration, and (re)settlement, the concept of home is liquidated to an unfixed and unsettled space, which keeps on changing as one shifts in time and space. This paper seeks to show how, rather than referring to one physical place as a single home, the diasporans refer ‘home’ to multiple physical places and symbolic spaces, as evident in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. Bringing into forefront the comparative description of pre-war and post-war scenario of Afghanistan, this paper will also examine how Amir’s cultural identity in America, after his displacement from Kabul via Peshawar, how Amir shares a sentimental bond with his ‘originary’ homeland, and how he shows his desire to return to his homelands like the other diasporans. This paper will undertake to show the varying notions of ‘Memory’ as metaphorical concept, ‘Home’ as a fluid construction in multiple spaces, and ‘Homecoming’ as intimacy, traumatic but warm in The Kite Runner.