Examining the art of myth-making in A Season for Martyrs by Bina Shah
Abstract
Bina Shah’s novel A Season for Martyrs (2014) brings forth the history, culture, and politics of the land of Sindh in a new grandeur that gives a mythopoeic aspect to the characters that cannot be ignored. Mythopoeia (Tolkien, 1988) is the art of myth-making, that is, the creation of new myths or recreation of old and existing myths with a new luster (Tolkien, 1988). The research explores the conversion of historical and political figures and cultural heritage into mythical legends and the preexisting mythical heritage of Sindh more majestic at the hands of Bina Shah (2014). Shah (2014) has generated a mixture of mythical supremacy with ordinary humanity in her created myths that, like popular mythical heroes, are the saviors of mankind but equally contain the human side that makes them closer to humankind. Among all the mythopoeic characters is the one for whom Shah (2014) has set this whole mythical stage, that is the Eighth Queen, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto.
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