Identity and Form in Contemporary Literature

Performing innocence: Violence and the nation in Ian McEwan’s Saturday and Sunjeev Sahota’s Ours Are the Streets

“…These are predicated on "authenticism", which assumes that "difference and otherness can be traced back to an original, unchanging, and 'pre-existing' reality" (Sánchez-Arce, 2007: 143). 2 As framing exclusion in racial or religious terms is politically undesirable, nation-building is displaced onto "British values". These values have variously been identified as tolerance and respect for laws and human rights such as freedom of speech.…”

“…None of it is true. They don't know me" (2). Although this is not the primary focus of this article, literature is particularly relevant to Saturday's denouement, "Dover Beach" acting as a soother for Baxter's rage and a prompt for love and kindness.…”

“…The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 53 (2) the Streets merges citizen and terrorist, decoupling the "dialectic victim-citizen versus outsider-terrorist which has been foregrounded by the rhetoric and law of the 'War on Terror'" (Quiney, 2007: 328). Anna Hartnell talks about "the unnamed source of America's post-9/11 fear: the Islamist enemy within" (qtd.…”