A conversation with Leila Aboulela

ABSTRACT

This conversation with Leila Aboulela is shaped primarily by an interest in her work’s position in the literary marketplace, especially in the UK. It explores Aboulela’s considerable success as a Muslim writer whose fictional worlds are infused with Islam, and asks what this might tell us about the place of faith within the marketplace. The discussion ranges from the author’s journey to publication through the roles played by editors and designers in the production of her fiction to the marketing and reception of her work, also exploring the question of whether and how to translate faith to a secular readership. Mindful of shifts in the reception of writers of colour, including Muslim-heritage writers, through Aboulela’s long career, it concludes with a consideration of a new generation of writers whose work does not shy away from Islamic perspectives, suggesting an openness to unfamiliar world views among readers and some publishers.

KEYWORDS:

• Leila Aboulela
• Islam
• secularism
• literary marketplace
• publishing industry
• reception

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Critical responses to Minaret along these lines include Waïl Hassan (2008) and Sadia Abbas (2014). For a scholarly response that credits Aboulela’s fiction with a more complex portrayal of Muslim women that might challenge liberal secular orthodoxies, see Lucinda Newns (2018).

2. This epithet was first given to Aboulela’s The Translator in a review of the novel by Riffat Yusuf for The Muslim News (quoted on Aboulela’s website: https://leila-aboulela.com/books/the-translator), but has since become a buzzword associated with her work.

3. Abdullah’s (2020) Take It Back was named Guardian and Telegraph Thriller of the Year, while her subsequent books have been shortlisted for or won a range of awards, including the Diverse Book Awards 2022. Mir’s (2021) The Khan was a Times and Sunday Times Best Crime Book of 2021. Malik has seen considerable success; This Green and Pleasant Land (Malik 2019) won the Diverse Book Awards in 2020. Good Intentions was Ali’s (2022) debut novel.

4. Looking beyond Islam to Christianity, Marilynne Robinson is certainly one of the most (if not the most) critically acclaimed contemporary authors to write from a perspective of faith.

5. Khan’s (2019) and Akhtar’s (2021) essay collections were published in the slipstream of Nikesh Shukla’s (2016) The Good Immigrant.

6. See Aboulela’s website for quotations from these reviews: https://leila-aboulela.com/books/the-translator/.

7. The Translator was first published by Polygon (Aboulela 1999) and subsequently as part of Heinemann’s African Writers Series (Aboulela 2001a).

8. Reports on race in publishing include Danuta Kean (2004, 2015), Spread the Word (2005), and Anamik Saha and Sandra van Lente (2020).

9. Examples include Hosseini ([2003], as well as his subsequent novels); and Hamid (2017).

10. Egyptian writer Mahfouz’s most famous works are perhaps his Cairo Trilogy (Mahfouz [1956–57] 2001); Sudanese writer Salih is best known for his novel Season of Migration to the North (Salih [1966] 2003); while Pakistani writer Ali wrote short stories and poetry as well as novels, including Twilight in Delhi (Ali [1940] 1994).

11. On the proliferation of mass-market memoirs by Muslim women writers after 9/11, see, for example, Gillian Whitlock’s (2006) Soft Weapons.

12. In addition to the success of fiction and non-fiction by Evaristo (2019) and Eddo-Lodge (2017), we might also cite Candice Carty-Williams (2019) and Evaristo’s Black Britain: Writing Back series for Penguin Books, launched in 2020.

13. On this tendency, see, for example, chapters 4 and 6 of Ahmed (2015).

14. Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature; Shafak (2019) was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize for her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World; Shamsie (2017) won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel Home Fire.

15. The interview Aboulela is referring to is that with Shireen Quadri (Obioma 2019a).

16. Mohamed’s (2021) novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021, the Costa Novel Award 2021, and the Wales Book of the Year Award 2022.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rehana Ahmed

Rehana Ahmed is senior lecturer in postcolonial and contemporary literature at Queen Mary University of London, co-editor of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, an associate editor of Wasafiri, and co-investigator on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project “Remaking Britain: South Asian Networks and Connections, 1830s to the Present”. Her publications include Writing British Muslims: Religion, Class and Multiculturalism (2015), articles in books and journals including Race & Class, Textual Practice, and Modern Drama, and a range of edited books and journal issues, including, most recently, “A House of Wisdom: Libraries and Literatures of Islam”, for Wasafiri.