Islamic Literature in Contemporary Turkey : From Epic to Novel

This book explores the changing understandings of Islam by focusing on the Islamist movement's production of literary fiction since the early 1980s. By focusing on Islamic literary narratives of the period, this study introduces issues of change, space, history and analytical relation that are excluded by the essentialist reading of Islamism.

The victory of the young religious politicians of the Justice and Development Party in 2002 and their new pro-European Union stance was proceded by the emergence of new Islamic intellectual, autobiographical, and literary accounts in the 90s. This book explores the changing understandings of Islam by focusing on the Islamist movement’s production of literary fiction since the early 1980s. It contextualizes a close reading of exemplary novels within broader developments in Turkish society. The study sheds light on how the politics of gender, collective identity, idealism, and individual aspirations in a modern context are expressed, generated, and revised through literature.

"The victory of the young religious politicians of the Justice and Development Party in 2002 and their new pro-European Union stance was proceded by the emergence of new Islamic intellectual, autobiographical, and literary accounts in the 90s. This book explores the changing understandings of Islam by focusing on the Islamist movement's production of literary fiction since the early 1980s. It contextualizes a close reading of exemplary novels within broader developments in Turkish society. The study sheds light on how the politics of gender, collective identity, idealism, and individual aspirations in a modern context are expressed, generated, and revised through literature."--BOOK JACKET Front Matter....Pages I-XXXV The Turkish Literary Field: A Space of Struggle Over Islam, Secularism, and Modernity....Pages 1-28 Salvation Novels of the 1980s: The Islamic Ideal for a Total Islamization of Society....Pages 29-85 The Concrete Performances of Salvation Novels on the Path to Collective and Epic Islamism....Pages 87-105 Self-Reflexive and Self-Exposing Novels of the 1990s: A Path to Muslim Subjectivity....Pages 107-151 Conclusion: From Epic to Novel(istic) Conceptions of Islamism....Pages 153-166 Back Matter....Pages 167-204