Strategies of Cognitive Decoloniality in Nadeem Aslam’s The Golden Legend

The colonial matrix of power (CMP) is a machine that continues to produce inequality, injustice, and hierarchies in the world. Due to coloniality, decolonisation failed in many postcolonial worlds. In this context, the current study explores the strategies of cognitive decoloniality in Nadeem Aslam’s fiction. The researchers have developed a conceptual framework of decoloniality based on the theories of Anibal Quijano and Walter D. Mignolo. Through the textual analysis method, the study delves into pluriversity, border thinking, and epistemic disobedience as strategies employed by Aslam in his novel, The Golden Legend (2017), to subvert and challenge the colonial matrix of power (CMP). The study identifies and analyses these strategies to examine their implications for cognitive decoloniality. This study is significant as it provides the first comprehensive exploration of decolonial strategies in Aslam’s fiction, fostering alternative narratives and amplifying the voices of the marginalized. The study underscores the transformative potential of cognitive decoloniality for dewesternization of the postcolonial world, a goal that is more urgent than ever in the face of ongoing inequality and injustice.