Muslim Writing, Writing Muslimness in Europe

Drawing on transcultural perspectives, it adds nuance to contemporary discourses on the "Muslim question" in Europe by collecting essays that, through their analysis of Muslim writing and writing about "Muslimness" from various epochs and diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, critically engage with the othering of Muslims and Islam

Throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the so-called Muslim question has intermittently, though persistently, taken centre stage in Western media and political discourses. In terms of culture within the European context, there is also a substantial body of literature that has engaged with Western anxieties projected onto the Muslim "Other" and, in particular, the Muslim migrant "Other". Literary criticism of Muslim writing and writing about Muslims in Europe has often highlighted the need to offer a more nuanced articulation of Muslim identity that contributes to challenging such othering practices.

Critical studies on Muslim writing produced over the last two decades have predominantly focused on contemporary literature, and the novel in particular, and they have often centred on specific linguistic and national frameworks. This collection of essays adds complexity to existing analyses of contemporary Muslim writing and writing about Muslims and Islam in the European context by emphasizing the comparative perspective of writings produced in different epochs and different linguistic and cultural contexts. Drawing on transcultural and world literature perspectives, Muslim writing is redefined so as to incorporate genres other than the novel and critical approaches that expand on disciplinary redefinitions of literature and literary studies.

The thematic focus and the rigorous in-depth analysis of the different case studies will make this collection relevant to students and academics within the fields of literary and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, as well as to those in European studies and global studies.

Autorentext

Carmen Zamorano Llena is Professor of English at Dalarna University, Sweden. She is the author of Fictions of Migration in Contemporary Britain and Ireland (2020) and co-editor of the Cultural Identity Studies series, as well as of several collections of essays, including Transcultural Identities in Contemporary Literature (2013) and Crisis and the Culture of Fear and Anxiety in Contemporary Europe (2024).

Billy Gray is Associate Professor of English at Dalarna University, Sweden. He is the author of Representations of Sufism in Contemporary Fiction in English (2025, forthcoming) and co-editor of the Cultural Identity Studies series and of the collection of essays Authority and Wisdom in the New Ireland: Studies in Literature and Culture (2015).

Carolina León Vegas is Senior Lecturer in Spanish at Dalarna University, Sweden. She has published on contemporary literature written in Spain, paying special attention to the portrayal of migration and to crisis narratives produced after 2008. Her research interests include the study of activism, corporality, otherness, space, trauma and the border in literature.

Carles Magrinyà Badiella is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Dalarna University, Sweden. His current research focuses on contemporary Afro-Hispanic migration narratives, border studies and collective authorship.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements

Notes on contributors

1 Introduction: Narratives of Muslim(ness) in twenty-first century Europe from a transcultural perspective

Carmen Zamorano Llena

2 "To resist the claims and expectations of the world": The absence of Islam and the presence of Muslimness in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West

Maria mothes

3 Displacement, emplacement and mobility in Jamal Mahjoub's The Fugitives

Jopi Nyman

4 On being "the other" in both France and Algeria: Muslimness in Waciny Laredj's Lolita's Fingers

Lovisa berg

5 Thinking and writing the Muslim otherness in the Burgundian travel tales and romances

nissaf sghaïer

6 Transcultural identity formation in the memoirs of Halide Edib and Huda Shaarawi

emel zorluoglu akbey

7 Transcultural voices from the past: Marabouts in Antonio de Sosa's Topography of Algiers and Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote

carles magrinyà badiella

8 Traumatic heritages, hybrid memories and uncertain multiculturalism: Narrating Muslimness in contemporary Italy

ilaria w. biano

9 How our children's books help to negotiate good parenthood: A participatory discourse analysis of Dutch Islamic children's books with Muslim authors and parents

Alex schenkels and paul mutsaers

10 The Islamic literary field and its recent transformation in contemporary Turkey

Zeynep Tüfekçiölu

Index