Reading Arab American Literary Variations An Interview with Rajia Hassib

The Arab American literary critic Steven Salaita states that Arab American literature, particularly the novel, is witnessing a remarkable upsurge and “is undergoing something of a qualitative and quantitative maturation” (2). Arab American literature gained prominence post-9/11, in a period when the Arab American community was being put under a critical lens (Fadda-Conrey 2014). According to Lisa Suhair Majaj,

The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in publication by Arab-American writers. This literary burgeoning reflects in part the shifting historical, social, and political contexts that have pushed Arab-Americans to the foreground, creating both new spaces for their voices and new urgencies of expression, as well as the flourishing creativity of these writers. (“Arab-American”)