Identity and the Self

The author presents stories of characters struggling with issues of identity and the self in pieces including “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” “Return to Sender,” “Bakhtawara and Miriam,” “Hungry Ricky Daddy,” “Occupational Hazards,” and “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak.” The author particularly employs inventive approaches to both form and point of view in these works in order to enact his central characters’ searches for, or attempts to reconcile with their true selves. Stories like “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” and “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” for example, are both written from the second person point of view of Mirwais and the spy respectively. In the former instance, Mirwais pauses his game when he spots his father and uncle inside the world of the game: “You notice that your room is a mess and that it smells like...