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Empathy industry

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Empathy industry examines how global markets shape fiction about the Global South for Global North consumption. Through the case of the post-9/11 anglophone Pakistani novel, it offers a sharp criti...
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  • 08 December 2026
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Empathy industry investigates how contemporary anglophone Pakistani novels engage with human rights discourse within a global literary economy shaped by Anglo-American tastes. It introduces the concept of the empathy industry to show how narratives about the Global South are structured to generate moral sentiment among readers in the Global North. Through close readings of major works by Mohsin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie, Fatima Bhutto, Nadeem Aslam and Mohammed Hanif, the book examines how depictions of suffering, justice and political identity are shaped by market expectations. Combining literary analysis with political and ethical inquiry, it questions the limits of empathy as a cross-cultural ideal in postcolonial contexts. It offers an analytically grounded account of how human rights storytelling circulates within world literature and how the global marketplace influences the production and reception of Pakistani fiction.
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Price: £85.00
Pages: 264
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Series: Global Textualities: Multicultural and Transcultural Narratives
Publication Date: 08 December 2026
ISBN: 9781526195081
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:

LITERARY CRITICISM / Middle Eastern, Literary studies: postcolonial literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Books & Reading, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Religion, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, Literary studies: from c 2000, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary

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Sauleha Kamal is a writer, cultural critic, and independent scholar working at the intersection of policy, postcolonialism, and human rights. Educated at Barnard College of Columbia University and the University of Cambridge as a Chevening/Cambridge Trust Scholar, she holds a PhD from the University of York. Her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker and The Atlantic. She is a recipient of the British Council Study UK Alumni Award for Culture, Creativity and Sport.

Introduction
1 Ethics, empathy and world literature: human rights discourses in Home Fire
2 Cosmopolitanism and the marketplace bargain: the case of The Reluctant Fundamentalist
3 Exclusion, empathy and human rights: The Runaways in the literary marketplace
4 Books as saviours: universalism and the hope of religious pluralism in The Golden Legend
5 Bodies at the margins: gender, religion and the intersectionality of oppression in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti
Conclusion: Writing rights

Bibliography