The Invasiveness of Healing in Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist

As noted by critics, sexual intimacy in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist emerges as an allegory of post–9/11 tensions. A prominent feature of the allegory is the depiction of healing as an opening for sexual intimacy. This paper demonstrates the invasiveness that healing acquires on account of the 9/11 novel’s interweaving of intimacy and terror. The focus of this paper lies on the two instances of love–making, in which injuries are put to work in ways that expose how healing potentially trespasses on the inaccessibility of others. The text’s arming of healing, which has hitherto not been accounted for by critics, is shown to spotlight the pitfalls that accompany the remedial potential of re-reading the other. As illustrated in this paper, the parallel between re-reading and the risk of healing not only reflects critically on the text’s re-presentation of healing but has an implicating effect on the reader