1st Edition
Allegories of Neoliberalism Contemporary South Asian Fictions, Capital, and Utopia
Simultaneously a critique of Foucauldian governmentalist interpretations of neoliberalism and a historical materialist reading of contemporary South Asian fictions, Allegories of Neoliberalism is a probing analysis of literary representations of capitalism’s “forms of appearance.”
This book offers critical discussions on the important works of Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Amitav Ghosh, Aravind Adiga, Arundhati Roy, H. M. Naqvi, Mohsin Hamid, Nasreen Jahan, Samrat Upadhyay, and other writers from South Asia and South Asian diaspora.
It also advances a re-reading of Karl Marx’s Capital through the themes and tropes of literature—one that looks into literary representations of commoditization, monetization, class exploitation, uneven spatial relationship, financialization, and ecological devastation through the lens of the German revolutionary’s critique of capitalism.
1. Introduction: Allegorizing Neoliberalism
2. "Kanna" and the Monetization of Affect
3. The White Tiger and the Subsumption of the Rural
4. Home Boy, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the "Empire of Finance"
5. Conclusion: In the Ruins of Neoliberalism
Biography
Sarker Hasan Al Zayed is Associate Professor of English and Modern Languages at the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) where he teaches literature and cultural studies. He is the translator of Ian Almond’s The Thought of Nirad C Choudhury: Islam, Empire and Loss. His essays have appeared in South Asian Review, Crossings, Harvest, and other academic journals and anthologies.
