UC Merced

This thesis endeavors to showcase this fragmented cosmopolitanism in Global South through a comparative analysis of national identity and urban cosmopolitan space in the novels The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017) by the Indian author Arundhati Roy, How to get filthy rich in Rising Asia (2013) by Pakistani Mohsin Hamid, Fábula Asiática (2017) by Guatemalan Rodrigo Rey Rosa and El sueño del retorno (2013) by the Salvadoran Horacio Castellanos Moya’s. It explores the questions such as rooted and unrooted cosmopolitanism, and homelessness, and how these dynamics are dependent on social, political and geographical boundaries and how does it, in turn, shapes national identities? If there is a trend that can be traced across boundaries and if neoliberal politics and political unrest are part of a larger design? And lastly, how the artists and literary figures in the global south have been expressing their dissent against the nation?