The past decade and a half has seen a growing popularity of authors who write about the East, usually Muslim societies. These writers themselves live in the West, but have taken it upon themselves to explain the East and Islam to others in the West. With one bestseller following another, some writers have become celebrities across the world. These authors, who usually write and speak fluent English, are the West’s favourite story tellers of the Muslim world, but only if, they tell a story that matches the one found in old and recycled stereotypes of the East. The story that often will reduce the richness and diversity of an entire region, framed in the same, essentially disrespectful manner. For example, country x (Afghanistan, Iran or Turkey etc) is highly traditional, ultra-religious and the protagonist, a young boy or girl, is at odds with his or her religious society and upbringing and wants to break free. The theme, though often subtle, is that the way of life the individual seeks are essentially Western, and the ultra-traditional communities and their wider society needs major reforms, without which, life is unbearable. There are two possible worlds that exist one) religious doctrine and tradition (usually Islam) are holding back society, leading to unspoken injustice and tragedy (usually the poor women are reserved as victims) or two) the society is a highly exaggerated Orientalist imagining, where spirituality and mysticism still permeates modern urban cities.
The author will borrow certain Islamic traditions, philosophies and figures to suit a narrative and conveniently discard of the serious and the boring orthodox Islam that might come with the story. In any case, religion is bad at worst, or irrelevant at best – but the intrinsic egotistic desires of the individual that yearn for freedom are without doubt good and must not be questioned.
This phenomenon is nothing new. At least for the past two centuries, European Orientalists have been active participants in this practise. The mysterious East with its harems and magic carpets, the one thousand and one nights and the endless horizon of sand dunes has become a particular delicacy for the Western reader. Modern authorship from writers who themselves trace their roots to the East have simply continued the same reductionist model, though with varying degrees of success. Before Elif Shafak, the author of the imaginary ‘Forty Rules of Love’ came along, the famous British Orientalist Edward Fitzgerald had already introduced a very loose translation of poetry attributed to the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was only received with open arms in Europe because his poetry was seen as ‘liberating’, liberating not only the poor English reader, who was tied down by puritan Christian doctrines of Europe, but also free of any serious Islamic influence that might have creeped up in Khayyams work. Later Coleman Barks and others would strip Islam from any and all works of Rumi, Hafez and Saadi.
Orientalist authors like Kipling and Conrad are long gone, and today’s reader is ever more aware of the old trappings of the past. Furthermore, never before in history have millions upon of Muslims called the West their home. With second, third and in some case fourth generation Muslims of immigrant ancestry, identifying themselves as quintessentially ‘Western’, there is a certain appetite and nostalgia to read something about their ancestral homelands, ideally from one of their ‘own’. This untapped demand has been met, quite successfully, by Elif Shafak, Khaled Hosseini and to a degree Orhan Pamuk. All three authors born in the East, but left the East to make the West their permanent home. With little to no fictional literature available in Western bookstores on what life is like in Afghanistan, India, Turkey or Iran, novels fictionalised in Kabul, Tehran, Istanbul or Delhi offer a rare insight into life, love and pain in a far away land. Though none of these authors pretend to write non-fiction, there are certain assumptions and liberties taken by the author and their publisher when a story set in a far away city is published. Yes, the story is fictional, but are the backdrops entirely imaginary? If actual religious or historical characters and events are used to set a story, can the reader really tell what is real and what is pure fabrication? I would argue not. An unaware reader who picks up a copy of the world best-seller ‘Kite-Runner’ with the name Khaled Hossein printed below at an airport bookstore, will almost certainly assume the author is genuine, qualified and the story no matter how fictional is based on real events.
Many such authors are not representatives of the land they write about. For example, Khaled Hosseini after the age of 9 left his homeland of Afghanistan for the West and never returned. His privilege upbringing afforded him the safety and comforts most Afghan’s know not. Then how qualified is Hosseini to tell a story about tribal-ethnic tensions, the social, political and human crisis under the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s or the pain and tragedy that befell the entire nation over the course of his books?
Though some would argue, and many do, that any voice is better than no voice. Let’s be clear, there are many native authors who either still live in the East and do continuously write fiction and non-fiction work about their homeland and many who have moved to the West, and chose to not play the Orientalist game of robbing their lands of its richness by playing the old and tired tunes of ‘there is nothing but pain, oppression and tragedy, and only escape to the West is a remedy’.
The past decade and a half has seen a growing popularity of authors who write about the East, usually Muslim societies. These writers themselves live in the West, but have taken it upon themselves to explain the East and Islam to others in the West. With one bestseller following another, some writers have become celebrities across the world. These authors, who usually write and speak fluent English, are the West’s favourite story tellers of the Muslim world, but only if, they tell a story that matches the one found in old and recycled stereotypes of the East. The story that often will reduce the richness and diversity of an entire region, framed in the same, essentially disrespectful manner. For example, country x (Afghanistan, Iran or Turkey etc) is highly traditional, ultra-religious and the protagonist, a young boy or girl, is at odds with his or her religious society and upbringing and wants to break free. The theme, though often subtle, is that the way of life the individual seeks are essentially Western, and the ultra-traditional communities and their wider society needs major reforms, without which, life is unbearable. There are two possible worlds that exist one) religious doctrine and tradition (usually Islam) are holding back society, leading to unspoken injustice and tragedy (usually the poor women are reserved as victims) or two) the society is a highly exaggerated Orientalist imagining, where spirituality and mysticism still permeates modern urban cities.
The author will borrow certain Islamic traditions, philosophies and figures to suit a narrative and conveniently discard of the serious and the boring orthodox Islam that might come with the story. In any case, religion is bad at worst, or irrelevant at best – but the intrinsic egotistic desires of the individual that yearn for freedom are without doubt good and must not be questioned.
This phenomenon is nothing new. At least for the past two centuries, European Orientalists have been active participants in this practise. The mysterious East with its harems and magic carpets, the one thousand and one nights and the endless horizon of sand dunes has become a particular delicacy for the Western reader. Modern authorship from writers who themselves trace their roots to the East have simply continued the same reductionist model, though with varying degrees of success. Before Elif Shafak, the author of the imaginary ‘Forty Rules of Love’ came along, the famous British Orientalist Edward Fitzgerald had already introduced a very loose translation of poetry attributed to the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam. Khayyam was only received with open arms in Europe because his poetry was seen as ‘liberating’, liberating not only the poor English reader, who was tied down by puritan Christian doctrines of Europe, but also free of any serious Islamic influence that might have creeped up in Khayyams work. Later Coleman Barks and others would strip Islam from any and all works of Rumi, Hafez and Saadi.
Orientalist authors like Kipling and Conrad are long gone, and today’s reader is ever more aware of the old trappings of the past. Furthermore, never before in history have millions upon of Muslims called the West their home. With second, third and in some case fourth generation Muslims of immigrant ancestry, identifying themselves as quintessentially ‘Western’, there is a certain appetite and nostalgia to read something about their ancestral homelands, ideally from one of their ‘own’. This untapped demand has been met, quite successfully, by Elif Shafak, Khaled Hosseini and to a degree Orhan Pamuk. All three authors born in the East, but left the East to make the West their permanent home. With little to no fictional literature available in Western bookstores on what life is like in Afghanistan, India, Turkey or Iran, novels fictionalised in Kabul, Tehran, Istanbul or Delhi offer a rare insight into life, love and pain in a far away land. Though none of these authors pretend to write non-fiction, there are certain assumptions and liberties taken by the author and their publisher when a story set in a far away city is published. Yes, the story is fictional, but are the backdrops entirely imaginary? If actual religious or historical characters and events are used to set a story, can the reader really tell what is real and what is pure fabrication? I would argue not. An unaware reader who picks up a copy of the world best-seller ‘Kite-Runner’ with the name Khaled Hossein printed below at an airport bookstore, will almost certainly assume the author is genuine, qualified and the story no matter how fictional is based on real events.
Many such authors are not representatives of the land they write about. For example, Khaled Hosseini after the age of 9 left his homeland of Afghanistan for the West and never returned. His privilege upbringing afforded him the safety and comforts most Afghan’s know not. Then how qualified is Hosseini to tell a story about tribal-ethnic tensions, the social, political and human crisis under the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s or the pain and tragedy that befell the entire nation over the course of his books?
Though some would argue, and many do, that any voice is better than no voice. Let’s be clear, there are many native authors who either still live in the East and do continuously write fiction and non-fiction work about their homeland and many who have moved to the West, and chose to not play the Orientalist game of robbing their lands of its richness by playing the old and tired tunes of ‘there is nothing but pain, oppression and tragedy, and only escape to the West is a remedy’.