Precarious Borders: The Nation-State and Arab Diaspora Novel

This project will shed new light on diaspora voices in debates about the formation and narration of nations, too often occulted by the dominance of canonical national writers. Arab writing is closely tied to its diaspora, making it particularly significant for probing how fiction registers the transformative effects of migration on our grasp of the nation. Spanning four diaspora sites and a century of writing, potential outcomes include more representative literary canons, an advanced diaspora-focused approach to reassess the nation from a transnational perspective, a new awareness of the value of diaspora writers’ engagement with the national form, and the vital repositioning of Arab-Australian writing in this field of world literature.