"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 dis-courses. 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 byemphasising 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 in 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 stud-ies"-- Provided by publisher.
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 emphasising 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 in 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.
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
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 Hamids Exit West
Maria mothes
3 Displacement, emplacement and mobility in Jamal Mahjoubs The Fugitives
Jopi Nyman
4 On being the other in both France and Algeria: Muslimness in Waciny
Laredjs Lolitas Fingers
Lovisa berg
5 Thinking and writing the Muslim otherness in the Burgundian travel tales
and romances
nissaf sghaļer
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 Sosas
Topography of Algiers and Miguel de Cervantess Don Quixote
carles magrinyą badiella
8 Traumatic heritages, hybrid memories and uncertain multiculturalism:
Narrating Muslimness in contemporary Italy
ilaria w. biano
9 How our childrens books help to negotiate good parenthood: A participatory
discourse analysis of Dutch Islamic childrens books with Muslim authors and
parents
Alex schenkels and paul mutsaers
10 The Islamic literary field and its recent transformation in contemporary
Turkey
Zeynep Tüfekēiolu
Index
Carmen Zamorano Llena is Professor of English at Dalarna University, Sweden. She is the author of Fictions of Migrations 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 Magrinyą 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.
