Islam in the Eastern African Novel (Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World)

231 Pages·2011·1.85 MB·English

by  Emad Mirmotahari

Islam in the Eastern African Novel
Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World
Edited by Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at
Columbia University. Hamid chaired the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
from 2000 to 2005 and was a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. His
most recent books include Islamic Liberation Theology: Resisting the Empire; Makhmalbaf at Large: The
Making of a Rebel Filmmaker; Iran: A People Interrupted; and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On
Palestinian Cinema.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan:
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Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh
Literature, Gender, and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: The Life and Works of ‘A’isha
Taymur
Mervat F. Hatem
Islam in the Eastern African Novel
Emad Mirmotahari
Urban Space in Contemporary Egyptian Literature: Portraits of Cairo
Mara Naaman
Islam in the Eastern African Novel
Emad Mirmotahari
ISLAM IN THE EASTERN AFRICAN NOVEL
Copyright © Emad Mirmotahari, 2011.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s
Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a
division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and
representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe
and other countries.
ISBN: 978-0-230-10843-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mirmotahari, Emad.
Islam in the Eastern African Novel / by Emad Mirmotahari.
p. cm.—(Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World) ISBN 978-0-230-10843-1 (hardback) 1. East
African literature—History and criticism. 2. Islam in literature. 3. Farah, Nuruddin, 1945–— Criticism and
interpretation. 4. Gurnah, Abdulrazak, 1948–— Criticism and interpretation. 5. Vassanji, M. G.—Criticism
and interpretation. 6. African literature—20th century—History and criticism. 7. Africa, East—Intellectual
life. I. Title.
PR9340.5.M57 2011
823′.9140938297—dc22 2010045305
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: June 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
For Azadeh and Fazlolah, who give and never take . . .
I am a lucky man. I carry the world within me.
— V. S. Naipaul
Art always says “And yet” to life.
— Georg Lukács
— Sadegh Hedayat
Contents
Note from the Editor
Preface
Introduction
1 Paradises Lost: A Portrait of the Precolony in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise
2 The Other Diaspora in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence and By the Sea
3 Situational Identities: Exiled Selves in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Memory of
Departure and Pilgrims Way
4 “Men with Civilizations but Without Countries”: Afro-Indians at History’s
End
5 Revisiting Nuruddin Farah’s From a Crooked Rib
6 A Typology of Political Islam: Religion and the State in Nuruddin Farah’s
Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship Trilogy
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Note from the Editor
The Islamic world is home to a vast body of literary production in multiple
languages over the last 1,400 years. To be sure, long before the advent of Islam,
multiple sites of significant literary and cultural productions existed from India
to Iran to the Fertile Crescent to North Africa. After the advent of Islam in mid-
seventh century CE, the Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Turkish cultures in particular
have produced some of the most glorious manifestations of world literature.
From prose to poetry, modern to medieval, elitist to popular, oral to literary,
these literatures are in great need of a wide range of renewed scholarly
investigation and lucid presentation.
The purpose of this series is to take advantage of the most recent advances in
literary studies, textual hermeneutics, critical theory, feminism, postcoloniality,
and comparative literature to bring a wider reception and appreciation to the
spectrum of literatures and cultures of the Islamic world. Usually the study of
these literatures and cultures is divided between classical and modern periods. A
central objective of this series is to cross over this artificial and inapplicable
bifurcation and abandon the anxiety of periodization altogether. Much of what
we understand today from this rich body of literary and cultural production is
still under the influence of old-fashioned Orientalism or post–World War II area
studies perspectives. Our hope is to bring together a body of scholarship that
connects the vast arena of literary and cultural production in the Islamic world
without the prejudices and drawbacks of outmoded perspectives. Toward this
goal, we are committed to pathbreaking strategies of reading that collectively
renew our awareness of the literary cosmopolitanism and cultural criticism in
which these works of creative imagination were conceived in the first place.
—Hamid Dabashi