In this chapter I chart the development of a shift of perspective in British political discourse from an endorsement of multiculturalism to a view of Muslims that is at best suspicious and at worst Islamophobic. I focus on two novels, one from the mid-1990s and the other from the early years of the twenty-first century, both of which contain characters who find themselves forced into a relationship with kinds of Islamic radicalization but which also seem emblematic of a rejection of collective identification in favor of types of individualism. In shaking off the staple requirement that minority writers be representative of their putative communities, these texts reject one of the central tenets of literary multiculturalism that continues to have a highly problematic investment in the notion of texts “speaking for” communities. The novels I examine are Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album (1995) and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003). I argue that in each a rejection of the emphasis on supposed authenticity and what is known as the “burden of representation” in fact mirrors the broader social trend away from multiculturalism as a political ideal based on group identities and the need for recognition of those identities and toward individual autonomy guaranteed by and played out through an economic individualism that aligns with neoliberalism.

XREF: Connects conceptually to discussions of multiculturalism's decline and the 'burden of representation' in postcolonial literary studies. FICTION: The tension between community representation and individual autonomy is a rich theme for fiction exploring identity.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 147