Abstract
This study analyzes Rohinton Mistry’s novel Such a Long Journey through a New Historicist framework, illustrating how personal experience and historical discourse intersect within postcolonial India. Set in 1970s Bombay, the narrative reflects the socio-political turbulence of the period. Through the Parsi protagonist, Gustad Noble, the novel presents an alternative history that reveals how local, national, and geopolitical pressures shape the diminishing fortunes of his family and the wider Parsi community. The study investigates how history emerges through personal consciousness, domestic spaces, and everyday encounters, demonstrating how official nationalist and developmental narratives often sideline marginalized voices. By situating the novel alongside relevant historical “co-texts,” the analysis deepens understanding of its representations of state surveillance, corruption, and authoritarian governance. It further shows how the text challenges official histories by foregrounding everyday struggles and overlooked perspectives. Emphasizing conflict, contradiction, and contextual complexity, this research highlights the instability of fixed interpretations. It foregrounds subversive or repressed voices and shows how literature can recover “submerged histories.” Aligned with the principles of New Historicism, the study critiques dominant ideologies, interrogates power relations embedded in discourse, and positions the novel as a cultural artifact that simultaneously resists, critiques, and reflects hegemonic structures in historically grounded ways.