Exiles and Their Ethico-political Responsibility:

Shaila Abdullah’s Saffron Dreams

Abstract

Written in the form of a memoir, Shaila Abdullah’s novel Saffron Dreams (2009) is the fictional representation of a young Pakistani-US Muslim young woman who lost her husband in the terrorist attack of 9/11. So presumably, contemporary realities such as rising Islamophobia in America, ethno-racial violence against Muslims, brewing tensions between mainstream Americans and Muslim immigrants are some of the main issues the book deals with. This paper focuses on the ethical-political responsibilities that exiles perform in their host country (USA). I argue that Abdullah’s novel, through fictional representation, shows that exiles have agency and they play significant ethical-political roles in their host country, especially by representing (or imagining) their community. Borrowing ‘exile’ theorization of Edward Said and Ashwini Vasanthakumar, first I will focus on the definition and function of the exile and then will examine how this human condition sketched in Saffron Dreams is ‘exilic’ by those definitions. I will illustrate how and to what extent the protagonist plays the ethical-political responsibility for Muslim community, and why that matters so much.