Scheherazade in the diaspora: home and the city in Arab migrant fiction

Building on the extensive literature related to postcolonialism and magical realism, this chapter examines how diaspora writing and magical realism are related. It focuses on alienation, the uncanny and mobility, among other elements, demonstrating that these are elements that unite and are common to both modes of writing. It argues that the case of Arab diaspora writing is particularly and uniquely suited to exploring how these modes are related. A close examination of two novels, The Night Counter by Alia Yunis and The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, illustrates how various forms of place, a central and key dimension of diaspora fiction, are refashioned and complicated through these novels’ engagement with and use of magical realism.