Literary Technocracy and Digitalization in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

Abstract

In the present scenario, the role of technology is increasing at a rapid rate in almost every field of life. Literature could not remain unaffected by technology as Ottmar Ette observes in his seminal book Writing-Between-Worlds (2016) that "with its manifold connections to life, literature reveals its own life force" (XXIII). Thus, technology reveals its own impact upon literature giving birth to literary technocracy and literature with various technological forms. Anthony Elliot and John Urry in Mobile Lives (2010) succinctly remark that the intensification of technology "influence(s) social relations in more subtle ways, especially in regard to the redrafting of the self" (30). This leads to the transformation of connections that one develops with the inner self and the outer world as well. Mohsin Hamid, a Pakistan-born British writer, in his novel Exit West (2017) makes use of technology frequently to narrate the story of its protagonists Saeed and Nadia, let it be for the movement from their birth land to host land or their life of struggle as refugees. The present paper explores how Hamid interweaves their lives with digital technologies while narrating their movement from one place to another in search of their home and identity. It also examines the sociological complexities and dichotomies created due to the digitalization of lives and the expansion of new technologies.