Challenges of Cosmopolitan Narrative: Rethinking the Expedition of Indigenous Writer as Self in Postcolonial Literary Paradigm

Abstract

The cosmopolitan narrative in the postcolonial world has been encountering challenges to provide the otherness narrative a dignified equal place within the cosmopolitan sphere. As cosmopolitanism is constructed on hybridity and universality with the projection of the globalized world, it appears to be the imperial narrative in the national and international domains. Postcolonial cosmopolitan writers, being the agents of cosmopolitanism, are struggling to explore the otherness/subaltern/indigenous self and narrative in authentic representation because the cosmopolitan center cannot understand and exhibit the periphery subject in its narrative. The prime responsibility falls on the postcolonial indigenous writers who are expected to conned the cosmopolitan narrative with the indigenous narrative. Postcolonial indigenous writers can establish themselves in the position of self in the cosmopolitan narrative giving the voice to the silent, invisible indigenous otherness. Notably, the indigenous writers of cosmopolitanism are the integral part of postcolonial hybridity for their dealing with indigenous narratives and cosmopolitan narratives. The aim of this article is to scrutinize the challenges and treatments of postcolonial cosmopolitan narratives towards the construction of indigenous self and narrative. It will also incorporate the indigenous literary endeavor through Canadian Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse: A Novel (2012), Indian Narayan's Kocharethi (2011) and Bangladeshi K. V. Devashis Chakma's Mui Mattei (2013) to explore the possibilities of indigenous narratives to become the part of the cosmopolitan narrative.