Yousef Awad

The Arab Atlantic: Resistance, Diaspora, and Trans-cultural Dialogue in the Works of Arab British and Arab American Women Writers Yousef Awad

The Arab Atlantic compares the works of contemporary Arab British and Arab American women novelists with a view toward delineating a poetics of the more nascent Arab British literature. Exploring the works of Fadia Faqir, Ahdaf Soueif, Leila Aboulela, Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby, the book investigates the historical and socio-political contexts that influence the literary productions of these authors and inform their experiences as Arabs in diaspora. The book pays attention to the different thematic and structural strategies adopted by these authors and highlights the heterogeneity of the concept of Arabness in contemporary Arab fiction. The conclusion of the book examines how the two sets of authors have represented, from an Arab perspective, the events of 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror in their novels. "Dr Awad is careful to emphasise the heterogeneity of the corpuses he discusses" (Dr. Lindsey Moore, Lancaster University, UK). "It is truly outstanding piece of scholarship [. . .] It is rigorous, original and wholly persuasive, as well as beautifully written" (Dr. Robert Spencer, University of Manchester, UK).