Topographies and Textual Negotiations: Arab Women’s Short Fiction

This new collection places the short story at the heart of contemporary postcolonial studies. In so doing, it also questions what postcolonial literary criticism may be. Focusing upon short fiction from 1975 to the present day – the period during which critical theory came to determine postcolonial studies – it argues for a more sophisticated critique exemplified by the ambiguity of the short story form. Short fiction is discussed from India, New Zealand, Singapore, North America, the UK, Egypt, the Caribbean and Africa. Themes include trauma, diaspora, language, national identity, democracy, the city, women's writing, the body, sexuality, and new media. Canonical figures such as Alice Munro are featured alongside emerging talents such as Jhumpa Lahiri and Wena Poon, genre writers such as Nalo Hopkinson, and writers new to an Anglophone or Western audience. The contributors, too, include established figures in postcolonial and short story criticism alongside new or emerging scholars.