Fragmented Memories: The Negotiation of Identity in Aamina Ahmad's The Return of Faraz Ali

It often serves as loci in fragmented memories in negotiating identity in postcolonial narratives. The intersecting individual and collective histories in the personal past of individuals make the nuanced interplay between memory and identity fascinating. This paper seeks to explore this interplay in Aamina Ahmad's The Return of Faraz Ali, with a protagonist torn between the duties of a police officer and unresolved trauma in the past. While much research on postcolonial literature has explored displacement and hybridity, fragmented memories in mediating identity have not been given much attention in terms to patriarchal and colonial structures. This paper will look at the gap in relation of how Ahmad uses the lens of memory to articulate Faraz's conflicted sense of self through systemic corruption and familial estrangement. The research investigates the socio-political and psychological dimensions of Faraz's identity negotiation, offering fresh insights into the broader implications of fragmented memory in postcolonial discourse.