Using a mix of literary and social analysis, this book examines a broad
range of modern Arab American literary fiction and illustrates how
numerous socio-political phenomena have affected the development of the
Arab American novel. Salaita argues that in the United States a variety
of fictions about Arabs and Islam circulate frequently in both popular
and academic cultures. He endeavors in turn to highlight the diversities
inscribed in the Arab American community that render it more complex
than generally is acknowledged in public discussion, an endeavor
undertaken through critique of a cross-section of modern Arab American
novelists, including Etel Adnan, Rabih Alameddine, Joseph Geha, and
Laila Halaby. Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics is
the first original book of Arab American literary criticism and offers
reflections on the viability of developing an Arab American Studies.