Overview

The Rushdie affair, September 11 2001 and 7/7 pushed British Muslims into the forefront of increasingly fraught debate about multiculturalism. Stereotyping images have proliferated, reducing a heterogeneous minority group to a series of media soundbites.This book examines contemporary literary representations of Muslims by British writers of South Asian Muslim descent - including Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali and Nadeem Aslam - to explore the contribution they make to urgent questions about multicultural politics and the place of Muslims within Britain. By focusing on class, and its intersection with faith, 'race' and gender in identity- and community-formation, it challenges the dichotomy of secular freedom versus religious oppression that constrains thinking about British Muslims, and offers a more nuanced perspective on multicultural debates and controversies.Writing British Muslims will appeal to academics and postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students in the fields of postcolonial studies, English studies and cultural studies. -- .

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9780719087400

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Reviews

Writing British Muslims is a must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Britain's ambivalent, ambiguous and often antagonistic and hostile relationship with its Muslim communities and citizens. Ahmed carefully situates her subtle, precise and perceptive readings of both well-known and lesser known texts within their material contexts of production and reception by paying close attention to the ways in which class and social space always intersect with religion, ethnicity and ideology in determining writing by and about British Muslims. This book is a magnificent example of politically engaged literary criticism that brings original insights to bear on matters of great public concern and debate. -- Anshuman Mondal.

Author Information

Rehana Ahmed is Lecturer in South Asian Literature in English at Queen Mary University of London

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