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21 - Multiculturalism and Muslim Writing after Brexit

from Part IV - Pathways and Legacies: 1945–2020

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2025

Auritro Majumder
Affiliation:
University of Houston
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Summary

Historical tensions over race and nation have bubbled over time and resurfaced again since the Brexit vote in the forms of increased racism and a “hostile environment.” British Muslim identity and belonging has been a complex process of negotiation in the British Isles and beyond. This chapter explores how transnational Muslim identities in Britain form digital interconnections and face disruptions in an increasingly securitized global architecture in which the digital serves as a place of contestation and surveillance. Through summary close readings from selected writings by Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Ayisha Malik, and Zaffar Kunial, this chapter emphasizes how Muslim writers translate the limits of a national English identity for migrant groups after Brexit through new representations of enclosed spaces such as gardens and parks.

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