NPR: Writing About The Midwestern Muslim Experience

January 17, 2012

Playwright Ayad Akhtar's debut novel, American Dervish, tells the story of Hayat Shah, a Pakistani-American boy in Milwaukee coming to terms with his religion and identity.

Ahktar says he drew from the sensibilities of Jewish writers and filmmakers like Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Woody Allen when thinking about how to give form to his experiences growing up as a young Muslim in the Midwest.

"[The Jewish community] was a community of immigrants, a minority community that was identified by their religious identity," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "And it was the same thing for us, for Muslims. ... In my experience, being Muslim was the primary identifier."

In American Dervish, Akhtar presents many different sides of what it means to be Muslim in America. There's Hayat's father, a secular humanist who doesn't want to be bound by the limits of scripture. Then there's his mother's best friend, Mina, who arrives in Milwaukee after fleeing a terrible marriage in Pakistan. She practices a progressive version of Islam, one which reinterprets the Quran for modern times. Hayat initially follows Mina's lead, but then turns to a more conservative, literal version of Islam after Mina starts dating a Jewish man.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145334491/writing-about-the-midwestern-muslim-experience?ft=1&f=1033

Looks like a good read...