Subalternity in Post-2003 Iraqi Novels: Sinan Antoon's The Eucharist

Abstract

This article examines the postcolonial issue, the subaltern, in post-2003 Iraqi novels. The selected translated text is Sinan Antoon's novel (Ya Mariam) in 2010 which is translated into The Eucharist. As a postcolonial issue, the subaltern gives the idea about what is considered to be minor to the focus or center. It is related to those people who suffer from being undermined under the prevailing of other people's majority in a certain society. It is like the inferior to the elite. On the other hand, it is resembling the asylum seekers or the refugees in their host homes. Those individuals are, generally, neglected politically, socially and culturally. They, if in their colonial or postcolonial homeland, suffer the duality of being part and apart from their country. Such a controversial feeling is exemplified in the duality of the two main Christain Iraqi characters in the selected translated text The Eucharist in its English copy for Sinan Antoon 2012.

Keywords: The subaltern, The Eucharist for Sinan Antoon, the dual affiliation and consciousness