Precarious citizens : a comparative analysis of the representation of Muslims and radicalisation in post-9/11 fiction : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Literature at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Abstract

The initial understandings and perceptions of the 9/11 attacks were heavily influenced by media coverage of the events and by the early literary responses published in prominent newspapers and magazines. The first wave of fictional writing about 9/11 was largely penned by Anglo-American writers such as Martin Amis, John Updike and Don DeLillo, who rarely challenged the dominant media narrative of American trauma and victimisation and reconfirmed stereotypes about Muslims and extremism. I contend that the election of Barack Obama helped inaugurate a second wave of writing about 9/11 in which non-European and immigrant American characters appear. This shifted the singular focus on American trauma to wider multicultural concerns. I discuss Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Amy Waldman’s The Submission as representative. However, it was not until Muslim immigrant authors themselves began to write about their experiences after the attacks that a third wave of more nuanced portrayal of both Muslims and Muslim extremism started to occur. In close analyses of Laleh Khadivi’s A Good Country and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire I discuss how such works offer complex depictions of cultural/ethnic “strangers/others” (including radicalised ones) who have made western nations their home. Both A Good Country and Home Fire offer insights into the difficulties faced by second-generation immigrants in everyday life in a county in which they desperately seek to belong but cannot, despite their citizenship. I argue that Shamsie’s keen (and informed) eye surveys a broader canvas than Khadivi’s. She counters stereotypes with researched psychological acuity and narratological skill. In our contemporary world, so fraught with tensions arising from misunderstandings of difference – religious, national, gendered, etc. – reading fiction about “strange others” and the ways they negotiate the difficult terrain of immigration, may have considerable social value.