Historiographic Metafiction Chaman Nahal’s Azadi

A distinctive novel characterized by an exploration of the relationship between history and fiction, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi expresses a strong consciousness of the fictiveness of all discourse about history and reality. The paper is an attempt to study Azadi in the postmodern perspective and to attempt the application and utility of the post-modern critical concepts like historiographic metafiction to historical novels. It is not only a recreation of a historical event but an imaginative revisioning of a historical epoch. Indian freedom movement and the consequent emergence of the two states, Pakistan and India, acquired a huge dimension in the history of South Asia. The focus of the novel is the socio-political concerns of the era. It leaves an impact of being more than a historical novel in which historical sense and reality enter into the sphere of art imperceptibly.