Juxtaposing Bangladeshi and Pakistani Narratives: A New Historicist Analysis of Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age and Rao Farman Ali’s How Pakistan Got Divided

Abstract

The purpose of this research paper is to offer a New Historicist reading by juxtaposing Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age and Rao Farman Ali’s How Pakistan Got Divided, two conflicting and contrasting narratives evolving from the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. Anam’s fictional work focuses on the personal, often gendered experiences of a newly created Bangladeshi identity in the heart of the anarchy of war, while Ali’s memoir reflects an official Pakistani military perspective that seeks to rationalize, justify, and contextualize the state's role in the conflict. Using New Historicist tools, both as a theory and research method, this study analyzes how each text constructs history not as an objective and neutral chronicle, but as a discourse embedded in ideology, power, and cultural memory. It examines how marginalized and silenced voices, particularly those of women and civilians, challenge dominant historical narratives, and it interrogates the ideological function of narrative in the postwar nation-building process. Ultimately, this paper reveals how literature and memoirs serve as arenas for contested national histories, and how historical fiction and military retrospection diverge in their treatment of trauma, blameworthiness, and memory.