BETWEEN ART AND ABSENCE: SUBJECTIVITY, DESIRE, AND PSYCHIC FRAGMENTATION IN ANJUM HASAN'S THE COSMOPOLITANS (2016)

Abstract

This paper explores Anjum Hasan’s The Cosmopolitans (2016) as a narrative that configures modern subjectivity via fragmentation, absence, and deferred desire. Transcending descriptive accounts, the paper underscores that these conditions are produced through narrative form and key moments within the text. Concentrating on Qayenaat’s engagement with the contemporary art world, encountering Baban Reddy’s installation Nostalgia, and the spatial shift from Bangalore to Simhal, the paper asserts that belonging in the novel is constantly unstable and that recognition is also structurally deferred. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, affect theory, and critiques of cosmopolitanism, the observations infer that fragmentation is constructive of the modern self rather than merely episodic. Connecting interiority to cultural and affective economics, the study adds to ongoing debates on subjectivity in contemporary Indian English fiction.