These two books present distinct answers to the question of whether it is possible, within the confines of the novel, to articulate Islamic religious identity. The avowedly materialist Black Album, like its predecessor The Buddha of Suburbia, recognizes all identity as experimental and performative; therefore, claims to a core, true religious identity are treated as opportunistic or dishonest. Brick Lane foregoes collective identification for individual self-assertion and a religious faith that, although depicted ambivalently, remains private and unthreatening. Similarly, while Kureishi uses the social comedy and bildungsroman forms to construct a bawdy, rambunctious disavowal of religious purism, Ali offers us supposedly unvarnished realism as a way to draw us in and ensure our sympathy for her downtrodden protagonist.

XREF: Connects to broader industry debates about how minority identity is rendered in contemporary British fiction and whether formal choices encode political positions. SEED: Angle for an essay comparing how a novel's form (comedy vs. realism) shapes reader sympathy for marginalized protagonists.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 149