khaled hosseini's and the mountains echoed, a cosmopolitan novel

Ever since its publication in 2013, there have been two major views toward khaled hosseini’s and the mountain echoed. the first view underscores the orientalist undertones of the novel and shows that by contrasting the utopian features of the western nations on one hand and the plight of afghanistan on the other, the writer has created an east and west dichotomy in which the west has been given the upper hand. the second view, on the other hand, demonstrates that, by giving voice to the otherwise unheard, hosseini, in a nationalistic vein, has paid his dues homage to his native afghanistan from which he had to migrate in his childhood. however, there is unanimity of opinion on one issue: hosseini advocates nationalism in one way or another. far from taking the above-mentioned views at face value, the current study aims at arguing that in this novel, hosseini is tacitly moving on from the national affiliations of his previous two novels by advocating post nationalism or non-nationalism which is the process through which national identities and boundaries lose their essentiality. due to war and unprecedented movements of populations across cultures and countries, the concept of “nation” has come under siege and its dominance is eroding in the postmodern world. in this novel also, hosseini offers a cosmopolitan view, with its inclusive and universalist claims through the character's detachment from the obligations and affiliations that constrain nation-bound and even genetic-bound lives. thus, this study is meant to read this novel in dialogue with appiah’s version of cosmopolitanism with its emphasis on simultaneous heterogeneity and inclusiveness, and deleuze and guttery’s concepts of 'rhizome' and 'a signifying rupture' to show how identity and sense of belonging can go beyond the traditional markers of nation, race, biology and ethnicity.