Storytelling, Liminality & the Textual Fashioning of a Post-Colonial “Ancient Mariner” in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Abstract

This paper examines Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist as a post-colonial re-writing of S. T. Coleridge’s narrative poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798). A comparative analysis is carried between these two works to establish their affinities in terms of storytelling technicalities and the space of liminality where they position their narrators. The comparative analysis shall prove that Hamid’s affinities with Coleridge’s work are deliberately employed to fashion his central character Changez as a post-colonial ancient mariner, which ultimately lies to the heart of the novel as both a contemporary politico-moral fable and as an act of resistance to post 9/11 American neo-colonialist discourses.