'This important book considers how some of the best-known contemporary Pakistani English language novelists negotiate their relationship with Islam and the West. Rejecting conventional views of such writers as either anthropologically 'representative' of their Muslim cultural heritage, or naively exotic pawns in a culture war between supposedly clashing civilizations, Madeline Clements shows how the authors' own complex personal and cultural affiliations give shape to novels thatchallenge the expectations and stereotypes of a putative Western reader. She is sensitive to the dynamic textual strategies deployed to give this body of work its distinctive yet diverse quality. Her subtle and powerful readings of novels by Salman Rushdie, Mohsin Hamid, Nadeem Aslam and Kamila Shamsie set a new benchmark for criticism that would do justice to the novels as works of art while at the same time staying alert to the shaping role of a fraught global political context.' Peter Morey, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of East Anglia, UK