Toward postmigrant realities in Leila Aboulela’s Elsewhere, Home

Abstract

The number of migration narratives published in recent years in the form of short stories, novels, poetry, and nonfiction has been considerable, particularly by writers connected with the African continent. Previous studies on this body of work have included investigations of identity and otherness, transnational connections, and cosmopolitan aspirations. Despite this abundance of perspectives on the literature, there have also been urgent calls for new ways of theorizing migration (Fasselt, 2019; Kraler, 2011; Edmunds, 2006). Postmigration is just such an intervention, a concept that aims to go beyond previous meanings of migrant and migration, to critique instances of othering and the gap between the margins and the majority society (Römhild, 2017), and to focus explicitly on trajectories relating to the future. Postmigration, as outlined by Roger Bromley (2017: 39), is not a concept solely tied to temporal distinctions, but is also ideological in its attempts to construct “a new set of emergent spaces of plurality”. The present article argues that Leila Aboulela’s short story collection Elsewhere, Home (2018) manifests such spaces, particularly through its representations and negotiations of gender, family practices, generation, and religious belief and practice. My analysis shows that Aboulela subverts tropes regarding gendered and religious identity and mobility. Elsewhere, Home is no longer primarily occupied with the displacement of individual characters but moves toward seeing migration as interaction and participation instead of integration (Moslund and Petersen, 2019), and as transcultural (Petersen and Schramm, 2017) instead of transnational.

Offering Guidance for Arab Women in the West in Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Bird Summons

“…Furthermore, she finally understands that through her children, she is part of the Western culture and its history. Englund (2020), states that Salma understands that there is a binding connection between her and the country that she lives in, especially that her children carry this country"s blood in their veins, and as a result, she is also one of them, regardless of her place of birth or the language she speaks. Moni"s case is also related to the issue of raising children in the West.…”

“…This can serve as a reminder for Arab women about the importance of learning more about Islam and following in the footsteps of previous Muslim women who have made a difference. According to Englund (2020), one of the major conflicts and obstacles that most of Aboulela"s characters suffer from is the feeling of being an "other". In other words, because they are foreigners, they feel that they will never be able to fit in with Western society.…”

Constructing Arab Western Identities Through Metamorphosis in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

“…Since it reaches its conclusion in its last chapters DeZelar-Tiedmanit finds the novel is -a bit heavy-handed if intriguing‖ (p. 77). Englund (2020) declares that the three Arab Muslim women characters in Bird Summons (2019) had the chance to recognize themselves as Arab Westerners. He goes on to say that the novel is different than Aboulela's previous novels, which are mainly about religion and migration, while in her current novel -the women's search for meaning and guidance is not solely defined in religious terms‖ (p. 1).…”