Negotiating Borders: Cultural Communication in Abu-Jaber`s Literary Works

Abstract

Diana Abu-Jaber is one of the prominent Arab American women writers. The article aims at discussing the literary works of Diana Abu Jaber focusing on the theme of border crossing. In writing novels, Abu-Jaber is curious to write about Arab American life and about characters that belong to the Arab world, mainly from Jordan and Iraq. In her novel, Arabian Jazz Abu-Jaber navigates a terrain fraught with overlapping cultural mores and tackles subjects that have long been taboo in both American and Arab society. She confronts us with racism, abject poverty, female infanticide, and incest, all set against the backdrop of one immigrant family’s struggle to carve out an identity in upstate New York. Using multiple narrators and continually blurring the lines between past and present, the novel provides a potent material critique of America, while casting an equally skeptical eye on the patriarchal vestiges of the Arab world.