Literary analysis examines how Zia Haider Rahman and Kamila Shamsie depict the 1971 war's impact on Bangladesh and Pakistan narratives, indicating cultural contestation.
The 1971 war, with its contested histories and memories, continues to spark political squabbles in South Asia even today. The 9‐month war ended with Pakistan's defeat and Bangladesh's emergence as an independent, sovereign nation. In Bangladesh, the war's emancipatory spirit has been replaced by competing and eruptive nationalist discourses. Pakistan, on the other hand, refuses to own up to its army's war crimes, causing strain in the Bangladesh–Pakistan relationship. In the Anglophone novels, Zia Haider Rahman's In the Light of What We Know (2014) and Kamila Shamsie's Kartography (2002), Bangladeshi and Pakistani origin characters scrutinise the war. I analyse the interpersonal encounters of these characters, who play a crucial role in generating a cosmopolitan understanding of the war and its impact on both Bangladesh and Pakistan.
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Asif Iqbal (2026) studied this question.
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