Literary Neo-Orientalism and the Arab Uprisings

A transnational study of the Arab uprisings in the Western literary market This book presents an analysis of English, French and German language fiction about the so-called Arab Spring. Through a transnational comparison of texts by a wide range of authors, both non-diasporic and diasporic, Julia Wurr investigates the commercialisation of Neo-Orientalist and securitised elements in short fiction and novels aimed at the Western literary market, and examines the role which the literary market plays in constructing, aestheticising and marketing mental boundaries between the Islamicate world and the West. By bringing together approaches from the social sciences with literary close readings, this study not only carves out recurring tropes, frames and figurations which are complicit in diffusing a Neo-Orientalist and anti-Muslim imagery into mainstream society, but also shows how influential frames of insecurity - precarity, affective masculinity and terror - refract the adverse psychosocial consequences of the neoliberal project into a securitisation of the Other. Key Features - Explores the poetics and socio-political functions of Neo-Orientalism, anti-Muslim racism and securitisation in English, French and German language fiction about the Arab uprisings - Includes close readings of works by Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jonas Lüscher, Adam Thirlwell, Jochen Beyse, Karim Alrawi and Mathias Énard, among others - Provides a methodology which helps to identify more subtle and latent forms of securitisation and offers a reversal of perspectives which raises awareness for the insecurity of the securitised - Contributes to research in Islamic studies, comparative literature and to the emerging field of the 'postcolonial Middle East' Julia Wurr is Junior Professor for Postcolonial Studies at the Institute for English and American Studies at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg.