Community, Faith, and Resistance: Writing Religious Resurgence in Select British Muslim Fiction [Hardcover]

This book looks at texts produced before and after 9/11 by novelists with Muslim backgrounds in Britain. It delves into the ways in which the politics of representation have changed, the conflicts that arise in these coming-of-age narratives between the demands of a liberal individualist lifestyle and those of community, family, and faith.

In a time when Islam and its diverse adherents are the focus of both public and political hostility in Britain and elsewhere, considerations of the meanings of Muslim cultural and religious identity can provide substance to often facile discussions. Sk Sagir Alis book examines an exemplary range of literary texts that are part of the wider corpus of British Muslim fiction in light of contemporary concerns and theories around Islam, culture, identity, secularism, representation, and alterity. An engaged and wide-ranging account of an important body of fiction that speaks to contemporary theoretical concerns.

Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge

This book looks at texts produced before and after 9/11 by novelists with Muslim backgrounds in Britain. It delves into the ways in which the politics of representation have changed in the wake of 9/11 and highlights the conflicts that arise in these coming-of-age narratives between the demands of a liberal individualist lifestyle and those of community, family, and faith. Drawing on the works of Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Nadeem Aslam, Qaisra Shahraz, Leila Aboulela, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Zia Haider Rahman, and Ahdaf Soueif, Community, Faith, and Resistance discusses how these authors distinguish between Islam as a religion and Islam as a culture and negotiate complex themes of religion, representation, recognition, and secularism in their works.

The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers, particularly those flƒ@