Revisioning History

As a historiographic metafictionist, Rushdie problematizes the traditional assumptions about history. Challenging official or documented history aligns Rushdie with the postmodern theorists and novelists who question the separation of history and fiction into two entirely different discourses. These theorists taking cue from post-structuralists affirm that history like other discourses cannot escape complicity with factors like subjectivity, politics, cultural forces and discursive nature of representation. Rushdie's novels demonstrate the cognitive constructivism that works in all narratives or discourses.