Mapping the Entangled and Intricate Memories of Diasporic Lives; Revisiting the Mnemonic Spaces in Khaled Hosseini′s The Kite Runner

Abstract

Memory Studies is a progressive academic field which resorts to the aid of memory to delve deep into the enigmatic field of human psyche by remembering the past. Memory shapes-reshapes, constructs-deconstructs, moulds-remoulds individuals as well as collective identity. For the diasporic people who have left their homeland either willingly or in compulsion, their memories about past life act as repository of various kinds of experiences which come and go like flashbulbs in the conscious and subconscious minds of people. The act of forgetting as well as filling the missing links with imaginations are not ontologically different from the act of remembering, rather they are cognitive components and through this dual process, identities are formed and nurtured. Memory Studies frequently challenges the privileged memories and tries to trace the marginalised abundant voices which are less known by digging up the mini narratives, largely repressed under the pressure of privileged grand narratives. Khaled Hosseini, the writer of the novel The Kite Runner, is one of those diasporic migrants who either willingly or unwillingly migrated to different socio-cultural spaces from their homelands and always felt haunted by their memories which construct, deconstruct and reconstruct their identities. And so, his fictional characters are. His characters by carrying double consciousness tried to raise their voices to reassert their dignity and importance by writing back to the centre. The Kite Runner initially describes the past happy state of Afghanistan only to contrast it with the devastated state of the nation as a result of the Russian invasion and Taliban aggression. The text shows how different memories and nostalgic longings about the past shape and reshape the identities of individuals, communities as well as of an entire nation.

Keywords

• memory
• diaspora
• identity