Twenty-First Century Fictions of Terrorism

Examining novels by celebrated authors, some neglected and some brand new texts, Arin Keeble offers a detailed analysis of the ways novels from around the world have represented terrorism in the early twenty-first century. Over five chapters, he uncovers a movement away from event-based narratives toward depictions of terrorism as a violent symptom or feature of twenty-first century world-systems and neoliberalism. Beginning with the early literary response to 9/11 and the 9/11 novel genre, the book moves through more recent depictions of the endless ’war on terror’, state terror, white nationalist terror and historical narratives of terror that resonate in the current political climate. In doing so, it examines the changing ways literature has sought to make sense of both the reasons why terrorism occurs and the effects it has on victims, survivors and international and intercultural relations.

Arin Keeble is a Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. His research interests include the literary and cultural representation of terrorism, crisis, neoliberalism and systemic violence. He is co-editor of Jesmyn Ward: New Critical Essays (2023) and is the author of Narratives of Hurricane Katrina in Context (2019), and his writing appears in journals such as Critique, Journal of American Studies, Post45, Parallax, Punk and Post-Punk, and TLS.