The Fallacy of Neo-orientalism and the Risk of Imperialism: How American Politics Mobilize Novelists

ABSTRACT The Muslim world has been plagued by imperial interests, cultural ravaging and plundering, unequal partnership with the West. However, since the September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks, the Arab world has moved to the center of political and cultural debates and attracted the major number of representations in American writings. These writings form a new phenomenon called neo-orientalism and revolve around a major theme: Muslim Arabs as victims of fundamentalist dogma. This study explores the ways in which neo-orientalism developed and was communicated to the reader in the United States after 9/11. The literature on this phenomenon is limited; therefore, there exists a need for the study of neo-orientalism through contemporary fictions that deal directly with Arab-American relationship. This study also investigates the assumption implicit in the conception that contemporary American novel is in solidarity with the state ignoring its imperial ambitions and its saturation with hegemonic practices. In response to the terrorist attacks, novel has been one of the most effective genres to represent the feelings of the nation and the concern of the country. This part of the study will refer to different attitudes and political orientations of novelists, which allow novel to follow the mainstream politics and do not grapple with the hegemonic interests.