Madeline Clements, Margaret Manion

Writing Islam from a South Asian Muslim Perspective

Rushdie, Hamid, Aslam, Shamsie

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book explores whether the post-9/11 novels of Rushdie, Hamid, Aslam and Shamsie can be read as part of an attempt to revise modern 'knowledge' of the Islamic world, using globally-distributed English-language literature to reframe Muslims' potential to connect with others. Focussing on novels including Shalimar the Clown, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Wasted Vigil, and Burnt Shadows, the author combines aesthetic, historical, political and spiritual considerations with analyses of the popular discourses and critical discussions surrounding the novels; and scrutinises how the writers have been appropriated as authentic spokespeople by dominant political and cultural forces. Finally, she explores how, as writers of Indian and Pakistani origin, Rushdie, Hamid, Aslam and Shamsie negotiate their identities, and the tensions of being seen to act as Muslim representatives, in relation to the complex international and geopolitical context in which they write.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan / Palgrave Macmillan UK / Springer Palgrave Macmillan
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 978-1-137-55437-6
• 1st ed. 2016
• Seitenzahl: 196
• Erscheinungstermin: 29. November 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 13mm
• Gewicht: 355g
• ISBN-13: 9781137554376
• ISBN-10: 1137554371
• Artikelnr.: 42851955

Autorenporträt

Madeline Clements is Research Lecturer in English at Teesside University, prior to which she was Assistant Professor of English at Forman Christian College, Lahore. She completed her doctoral thesis at the University of East London. Her articles have been published in journals and books including Sohbet, Wasafiri, and Imagining Muslims. She reviews regularly for Dawn's Books and Authors supplement, and for the TLS.            

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements 1. Writing Islam from a Contemporary South Asian Perspective 2. Enchanted Realms, Sceptical Perspectives
Salman Rushdie after 9/11 3. 'A Devilishly Difficult Ball'
Mohsin Hamid's 4. Re
culturing Islam
Nadeem Aslam's Mausoleum Fiction 5. Stranger Intimacies
The Novels of Kamila Shamsie 6. Writing Contemporary Islam
An Ambiguous Project Bibliography Index

Rezensionen

'Highlighting how a number of key contemporary writers of Muslim background have strategically engaged with rigidly constructed notions of 'Islam', this book provides a sensitive and intelligent reading of South Asian fictions. In its wide-angled and transnational perspective, it is not only important but engaging and timely, demonstrating how these writers take us directly to the centre of issues that are crucial to our times'. Susheila Nasta, Professor of Modern Literature, The Open University, UK

'This important book considers how some of the best-known contemporary Pakistani English language novelists negotiate their relationship with Islam and the West. Rejecting conventional views of such writers as either anthropologically 'representative' of their Muslim cultural heritage, or naively exotic pawns in a culture war between supposedly clashing civilizations, Madeline Clements shows how the authors' own complex personal and cultural affiliations give shape to novels thatchallenge the expectations and stereotypes of a putative Western reader. She is sensitive to the dynamic textual strategies deployed to give this body of work its distinctive yet diverse quality. Her subtle and powerful readings of novels by Salman Rushdie, Mohsin Hamid, Nadeem Aslam and Kamila Shamsie set a new benchmark for criticism that would do justice to the novels as works of art while at the same time staying alert to the shaping role of a fraught global political context.' Peter Morey, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of East Anglia, UK