Islam in the Eastern African Novel [Paperback]

This study of?the sub-Saharan African novel interprets?representations of?Islam as a central organising presence that generates new conceptual questions and demands new critical frameworks with which to approach categories like nationhood, race, diaspora, immigration, and Africa's multiple colonial pasts.Paradises Lost: A Portrait of the Precolony in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise The Other Diaspora in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Admiring Silence and By the Sea Situational Identities: Exiled Selves in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Pilgrims Way and Memory of Departure 'Men With Civilizations But Without Countries': Afro-Indians at History's End? Revisiting Nurrudin Farah's From a Crooked Rib A Typology of Political Islam: Religion and the State in Nuruddin Farah's Variations on the Theme of the African Dictatorship Trilogy

This book will reward anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of Islam in East African literatures. Proponents of close readings and thematic studies will find this book extremely useful as the analysis is a remarkable effort in rescuing Islam from the margins of cultural theory, allowing the voice of African Muslims from the eastern African coast to be emphatically heard. But most of all, Mirmotahari's sensitive study of Islam is a timely rejoinder to critics of African literatures who have repeatedly engaged in poorly informed interpretations and readings of Islam in African literary fiction, stemming mostly from a lack of proper knowledge and sensitivity to the religion and its practitioners. - Contemporary Islam

The most comprehensive study of Islam in Eastern African fiction to date, Mirmotahari's book is a welcome addition to the region's re-visioning of its multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious history. Well researched and well-argued, this book provides new perspectives on the work of Nuruddin Farah and will hopefully encourage teachers to introduce lesser-taught authors such as Abdulrazak Gurnah and M.G. Val“M