Beyond the Binary: Deconstructing the “Friend Enemy” and “Native Stranger” Archetypes in Maximum City and at Home in Enemy Land

Author

Sharayu S.

Abstract

 This paper examines how Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found and Saad Shazli’s At Home in Enemy Land challenge and complicate the binary oppositions of “friend–enemy” and “native–stranger.” Drawing on postcolonial frameworks, the study argues that both texts reveal these categories as unstable, fluid, and socially constructed. Mehta’s exploration of Mumbai exposes the porous boundaries between insider and outsider within an urban landscape shaped by migration and inequality, while Shazli’s narrative interrogates national and ideological divisions that define belonging in politically charged spaces. Through comparative analysis, the paper demonstrates that travel writing destabilizes fixed identities and opens up possibilities for more nuanced understandings of self and other.

Keywords

Postcolonialism, binaries, identity, travel writing, Suketu Mehta, Saad Shazli

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References

Mehta, Suketu. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. Penguin Books, 2005.

Shazli, Saad. At Home in Enemy Land.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Penguin Books, 2003.

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