Imagining Muslims in South Asia and the Diaspora

Claire Chambers is Lecturer in Global Literature at the University of York, UK. She researches modern literature from South Asia, the Arab world and their diasporas. Claire is the author of British Muslim Fictions: Interviews with Contemporary Writers and the forthcoming Representations of Muslims in Britain.Caroline Herbert is Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Her research centres on contemporary South Asian Literature and film, with a specific interest in narratives of urban modernity, secularism, and economic liberalization in India. She is editor of Postcolonial Cities: South Asia, a special issue of Moving Worlds (2013).

• Introduction: Contexts and Text Part I: Surveying the Field; Comparative Approaches 1. The Making of a Muslim 2. Representations of Young Muslims in Contemporary British South Asian Fiction. 3. Before and Beyond the Nation: South Asian and Maghrebi Muslim Women’s Fiction Part II: Syncretism, Muslim Cosmopolitanism, and Secularism 4. Restoring the Narration: South Asian English writing and Al-Andalus 5. Music, Secularism and South Asian Fiction: Muslim Culture and Minority Identities in Shashi Deshpande’s Small Remedies 6. ‘A Shrine of Words’: The Politics and Poetics of Space in Agha Shahid Ali’s The Country Without a Post Office 7. Hamlet in Paradise: The Politics of Procrastination in Mirza Waheed’s The Collaborator Part III: Currents within South Asian Islam 8. Liberalizing Islam through the Bildungsroman: Ed Husain’s The Islamist 9. Enchanted Realms, Sceptical Perspectives: Salman Rushdie’s Recent Fiction 10. Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim: Bangladeshi Islam, Secularism and the Tablighi Jamaat Part IV: Representations, Stereotypes, Islamophobia11. Saving Pakistan from Brown Men: Benazir Bhutto as Pakistan’s Last Best Hope for Democracy 12. Queer South Asian Muslims: The Ethnic Closet and its Secular Limits 13. After 9/11: Islamophobia in Kamila Shamsie’s Broken Verses and Burnt Shadows

"Overall, this is an incredibly rich source of material that challenges dominant Western discourse about Muslim identity as a homogeneous entity. It illustrates the contributing factors to this misrepresentation of Muslim identity and experiences within present and historical depictions of Muslim people and the Islamic faith and for highlighting core texts about Muslim culture and experiences within South Asia written by Muslim authors."Danita Catherine Burke - Journal of International Relations Research - Issue 5 - December 2015This book offers an interesting collection of essays focusing on the image and representations of Islam and Muslim identity and the complications surrounding both. […] In the process of interpreting Muslim identity, the stereotypes created by South Asian writers are challenged by some authors because in their view this means the misrepresentation of Muslim identity and Islam as ideology. This work emphasizes the responsible role of a creative writer as well as academics who can continue the dialogue and clarify the ambiguities surrounding the topic in focus. While some authors fairly believe that if literature or theory fails to deal with the complexities of issues, bridging discourses like art, fiction and film can address certain ambiguities.Nukhbah Taj Langah, Forman Christian College, Lahore, Pakistan in Pacific Affairs