Aboulela Review

Leila Aboulela’s new novel, Minaret, is reviewed over at the Guardian. (The book will be released by Grove/Atlantic, I think, in the fall.)

During the past half dozen years, a new genre of contemporary English fiction seems to have emerged in the form of a series of novels by Muslim writers that explore the fault lines between various Islamic cultures and the way of life flourishing in the US and western Europe.

The authors do not set out to “explain” or satirise Islam from a western perspective, and they avoid the cute and ingratiating tone that has come to characterise popular narratives about identity and the clash of cultures in Britain. Instead, they write from inside the experience of growing up and living with a network of customs and beliefs, which have themselves been subject to dramatic and far-reaching changes in the 20th century.

Leila Aboulela’s second novel, Minaret, marks her out as one of the most distinguished of this new wave.

The rest of the review is equally glowing. I can’t wait to read it.

Thanks to David F. for the link.