Representation of Historical Accounts in Tariq Ali’s Fiction: A New Historicist Study

Abstract

This paper discusses representation of historical accounts in Tariq Ali’s two novels The Book of Saladin (1998) and The Stone Woman (2000) through their close reading. These two novels are from Islam Quintet- a series of five historical novels about Muslims and their clash with the Christians in from twelfth to twenty first century. As these novels are for the much part historical; depicting political and cultural history of two different eras of Muslim (1187 and 1899); the novels have been analyzed through the New Historicist study as its theoretical perspective. New Historicist study calls for the researcher to go outside text itself to have a deeper understanding of the milieu and epoch of the time depicted in the proposed novels. Because New Historicists believe, “Representation of history is the matter of interpretation not facts and emphasis impossibility of objective analysis” (Tyson, 2006). In order to carry this out, the method of textual analysis is conducted. Textual Analysis, as McKee holds, is useful for researchers working in cultural studies (McKee, 2001). The end of the analysis is to have a turnout of a deeper comprehension of the relationship between textual and historical depiction in the text. Furthermore by applying knowledge of historical ideas for the interpretation of a specific literary text it attempts to investigate the value and relevance of historical knowledge applied to text. The endeavor made in the paper explores that Ali’s these two novels are fundamentally historical; political structures and ideological conflicts are central to the theme of the text. But not much objective interpretation, on the part of author, is observed during study. The text is the discursive production of the events laid down in history. The text supports the minority group of the time.