In the aftermath of 9/11, Arab American writing surged. While there have
been Arab American writers before, they tended to identify as American
only and thus did not recur to Arab elements in their writing. Why did
Arab American literature suddenly rise? What is its purpose? How do the
novels deal with 9/11? How do authors portray their group's identity,
how the group's position in US society? And how do they poeticize these
questions? What sets them apart from mainstream literature? Many Arab
American novels draw on well-known, classical Arab storytelling
traditions. In how far do they adapt them? This study analyzes Diana
Abu-Jaber's Crescent, Rabih Alameddine's 'The Hakawati', Laila Halaby's
'Once in a Promised Land', and Alia Yunis' 'The Night Counter'; and it
answers the above questions by a close reading against the background of
classical Arab elements, and by employing concepts of figurational
sociology to analyze the poeticization of establishment and outsidership
in the novels.