Muslim Women's Identity in a Changing World: the Fiction of Leila Aboulela

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the representation of Muslim women grappling with cross-cultural experience and identity in fictional works by Leila Aboulela . The works examined are: The Translator, Minaret, Lyrics Alley, The Kindness of Enemies and Bird Summons; in addition to the two collections of short stories, Coloured Lights and Elsewhere, Home. I argue that Aboulela depicts Muslim women as active agents who practise their faith from personal conviction as a deliberate strategy to counter dominant Western misconceptions of their supposed oppression under a patriarchal religion.