Muslim Masculinities in Literature and Film: Transcultural Identity and Migration in Britain

Description

A climate of Islamophobia allows anxieties about Muslim men living in and migrating to Britain to endure. British Muslims men are often profiled in highly negative terms or regarded with suspicion owing to their perceived religious and cultural heritage. But novels and films by British migrant and diaspora writers and filmmakers powerfully contest these stereotypes, and explore the rich diversity of Muslim masculinities in Britain. This book is the first critical study to engage with British Muslim masculinities in this literary and cinematic output from the perspective of masculinity studies. Through close analysis of work by Monica Ali, Nadeem Aslam, Guy Gunaratne, Sally El Hosaini, Hanif Kureishi, Suhayl Saadi, Kamila Shamsie, Zadie Smith, Zia Haider Rahman and Salman Rushdie, Peter Cherry examines how migrant and diaspora protagonists negotiate their masculinity in a climate of Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric. Cherry proposes a transcultural reading of these novels and films that exposes how conceptions of 'Britishness', 'Muslimness' and those of masculinity are unstable and contingent constructs shaped by migration, interaction with other cultures, and global and local politics. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Textual Notes Writing British Muslim Masculinities Part 1 Writing British Muslim Masculinities before and after The Satanic Verses Affair 1 Muslim Masculinities on the Move: Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) 2 Sacred and Secular Masculinities: Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995) and Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000) 3 Between Men, Desiring Men: Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Laundrette and Sally El Hosaini’s My Brother the Devil Part 2 Writing British Muslim Masculinities after 9/11 4 British Muslim Masculinities in the Metropolis: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2004) and Suhayl Saadi’s Psychoraag (2004) 5 Mapping Masculinities: Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) and Zia Haider Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know (2014) 6 Fathers, Brothers, Sons: Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017) and Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City (2018) Conclusion: Untranslated Men? Notes Bibliography Index