Cultural Negotiation in Arab Western Diaspora and the Images of Self Orientalism in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons

Cite this article as: Gadaka, M. U. (2026). Cultural negotiation in Arab Western diaspora and the images of self-orientalism in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons. Sokoto Journal of Linguistics and Communication Studies (SOJOLICS), 2(1), 451-462. https://doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i01.037

By

Mohammed Umar Gadaka, Ph.D.   
Department of English and Literary Studies
University of Maiduguri    
umarmg77@gmail.com; gadaka77@unimaid.edu.ng

Abstract

Rooted in Edward Said’s theorization of Orientalism, this paper is concerned with the literary representations of the phenomenon of Self-Orientalism in Oriental literature. Self-Orientalism is a situation where Oriental subjects internalize and self-inscribe Orientalistsdistorted knowledge of the Orient and participate in the construction, reinforcement and dissemination of Orientalist discourse through their literary pieces and other forms of cultural expressions, in a bid to conform to Western cultures. Literary representation of Self-Orientalism perpetuates subservience to Western narratives, reinforces harmful stereotypes and promotes the intellectual, cultural, economic and political domination of the Orient that colonialism left behind. This study aimed to examine the manifestations of Self-Orientalism in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons. To this end, the study conducted a contrapuntal reading of the text using the four principal dogmas of Orientalism as analytical framework to highlight the manifestations of self-Orientalist tropes in the novel, to raise critical consciousness on the complex dynamics of Orientalist discourse. In the end, the study concludes that, on its face value, the novel revolves around the theme of cultural negotiations in Arab Western diaspora, but beyond engagement with this theme, the storyline is subtly tainted with the images of self-Orientalism, appealing to all the four principal dogmas of Orientalism. This finding suggests that some contemporary Oriental writersin Arab Western diaspora are complicit in Western cultural imperialism.This paper contributes to the ongoing postcolonial discourse about cultural representation, identity and power dynamics in literature by providing African postcolonial literary critics with critical insights for a broader engagement with discussions about similar imperialist Africanist discourse, where Africa’s image is stereotypically constructed using similar rubrics to the Orient’s.

Keywords: Orientalism, Self-Orientalism, Arab Diasporic Literature, Leila Aboulela

1. Introduction

Literature as a unique form of human communication that captures and conveys the human experience and condition is concerned with themes that relate to the cultural, social, economic, political, and inter- or intra-personal issues of the people and societies in which they are produced. Beyond engagement with these themes, literature is also shaped by the thoughts of great minds of its time (Keerthika, p.471) and the ideological inclination of their social system and epochs. As a result of this, we find some underlying ideas and ideologies such as Marxism, Feminism, Capitalism, Communism, and Orientalism among others, shaping and characterising different regional, sub-regional, and epochal literatures. In postcolonial literature, these underlying ideologies often intersect to construct power imbalance between the West and its perceived inferior ‘Others’, reinforcing dominant cultural norms. Therefore, at the heart of postcolonial literary criticism is the interrogation, explication and interpretation of such themes and ideologies to amplify silenced voices and expose such imbalanced power relations. To this end, this paper is concerned with the explication ofthe phenomenon of Self-Orientalism as the underlying ideology shaping the storyline of Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons.

Self-Orientalism is the corollary of Orientalism - a Western discourse theorised by Edward Said. In his seminal work Orientalism, published in 1978, Edward Wadi Said, a Palestinian-American academic and public intellectual argues that inorder to justify going out to colonise, plunder, and pillage the rest of the world in the 18^th and 19^th centuries in the guise of civilizing mission, Western colonial powers had to portray themselves as paragons of virtues and enlightenment, and used stereotypical narratives (Orientalism) to portray the people they were going to colonise and ‘civilize’ as barbaric and savage, in need of Western civilization and salvation (Bhutto, Doha Debate, Nov. 2023: video; Said, Orientalism, p.300). Orientalism, according to Said, is a Western discourse (ideas and institutional practices) that constructs the image of the Oriental world, people, and culture, particularly the Middle-East and North Africa (also known as the MENA region), as exotic, culturally static, savage and barbaric, and essentially violent. The discourse of Orientalism serves as a tool to justify the notion that the Orient is in need of salvation by the Western world (the Occident), which is considered civilised, rational, and the diametric opposite of the Orient (Said, Orientalism, pp.300-11).

As a tool for Western cultural domination and imperialism, Orientalism is pervasive, manifesting in various forms and expressed through different media, including literature, television shows, art and photography, social media, dance and performance, painting etc. Its influence extends across divers domains, including academic and intellectual discourse, cultural representations, politics and foreign policy, and everyday human attitudes to, and perceptions of the world around them. According to Ranji, ‘the first step in dealing with Orientalism is seeing it and acknowledging that it exists in our everyday academic practices of researching, teaching, performing, peer reviews and communicating with colleagues’ (Ranji, p.1144).

Traditionally, Orientalismas a cultural and political ideology of the Western Orientalists is a defining characteristic of a body of texts and authors, which Edward Said calls the ‘Orientalist canon’ (Orientalism p.4). In literature, Orientalism is discernible to those who pay attention to its fine details. For example, Paulo Coelho’s novel, The Alchemist (2014) tells the story of Santiago, a Spanish young man undertaking an adventurous journey into the Egyptian desert in search of what Coelho calls ‘personal legend’. In the storyline, however, the author leads the protagonist to stealthily depict, in his imagination, how the Western culture is superior to that of the Orient. Another example is in Rudyard Kipling’s imperialist poem, The White Man’s Burden (1899), where the poet constructs the Filipinos as culturally backward and exhorts the United States to assume the colonial control of the Philippine Islands under the guise of civilizing mission.These representations do more than mischaracterization. They create a framework of power where the ‘West’ positions itself as the ‘‘rational’’, progressive, and diametric opposite of the ‘Orient’, which is rendered as an object to be known, controlled, and dominated (Said, p.311).

In the modern times, the aim of Orientalist discourse is mainly to perpetuate colonial legacies in the Orient byleadingthe Orientals to internalise in the deepest recesses of their collective consciousness that they are culturally backward and violent, and therefore, in need of Western civilization and intervention. Oddly enough, consciously or unconsciously, this latter goal seems to be gaining traction among the Oriental literary writers and intellectuals in the diaspora as some of the literary outputs from the Arab Western diaspora suggest; or as Ashcroft et al aptly put it, Orientalism now ‘‘spills into the realm of self-construction in such a way that the Western idea of a set of generalised Oriental values is consciously promoted by peoples who were themselves lumped together by Orientalist rubrics’’ (Ashcroft et al, p.154). In other words, the Arabs and other Oriental subjects, who are constituted as the inferior ‘Other’s by Western Orientalist discourse are now adopting ‘‘standard Western stereotypes for themselves’’ as manifest in Oriental literature (Alghamdi, p.93) - a phenomenon described as ‘‘Self-Orientalism’’ in postcolonial discourse (Drott, p.4).

As modern Western discourse and worldview of the ‘Others’ is significantly shaped by 19^th century Orientalist discourse, especially post-September 11^th Western discourse, literary representations of Self-Orientalism, which remain underexplored, perpetuate subservience to Western narratives, reinforce harmful stereotypes against non-Western cultures and peoples, and promote the intellectual, cultural, economic and political domination that colonialism left behind in the Orient and by extension, Africa; and thereby, problematize the culturally normative paradigms of Oriental and Islamic culture. For instance, hijab is now generally seen in Western Orientalist discourse as a symbol of ‘cultural backwardness, to the point that a ‘hijab-clad’ woman is now considered a social misfit; and “its lifting” as a sign of modernization and freedom (Hasan, p.43). This calls for a critical study to raise critical consciousness on the phenomenon and to provide postcolonial scholars with more insights and new perspectives on the complex dynamics of Orientalist discourse for a broader engagement with discussions about decolonization, identity, and cultural representations in literature.To this end, this paper examines Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons with a view to analysing how self-Orientalism manifests subtly in the text’s storyline of cross-cultural negotiations in Arab Western diasporic literature.

2. Literature Review

Orientalism as a Western discourse has many faces and objectives, but its primary goal is to lead the Oriental subjects to internalise in the deepest recesses of their collective consciousness that they are culturally inferior, backward, lacking in agency to define themselves, and inherently violent; and therefore, in need of Western intervention and civilization. The concept of Self-Orientalism, which remains underdeveloped and underexplored as a relatively new field of scholarly inquiry within the larger discourse of Orientalism (Dirlik, pp.2-6; Drott, pp.1-10), is a phenomenon whereby the Oriental individuals or groups, who are heavily influenced by Orientalist discourse, internalise and participate in the construction, reinforcement, and circulation of Orientalist stereotype, often through literary pieces and other forms of cultural expression, in order to conform to Western cultural standards. In other words, the Orientalists leverage the power inherent in sustained one-sided Orientalist discourse about the Orient to construct the West as culturally, politically and economically superior to the Eastern world, while Self-Orientalism is the long-term effect of such discourse on the Oriental subjects. Different scholars have viewed the phenomenon of self-Orientalism from different perspectives.

According to Drott, Self-Orientalism examines the idea that ‘the Oriental himself participates in the construction, reinforcement and circulation of Orientalist discourse (p.4). In the same line of thought, Yan and Santos describe Self-Orientalism as ‘‘either a way of striving for modernity and equality with the West or as a practice by the Oriental because his or her own knowledge is already so heavily influenced by Western conceptions’’ (p.298). From another point of Komel sees the phenomenon as occurring when the Orientals use Western line of thought and stereotypes to define themselves, describing the phenomenon as people writing from ‘‘Occidental scripts’’ (p.528). Similarly, Alghamdi sees Self-Orientalism as a means for indigenous Oriental intellectuals and political elites to ‘‘construe and present themselves – to themselves, to each other, and to the world’’ based on the ‘‘prevailing Orientalist script’’ (p.93). Self-Orientalist authors, Alghamdi further posits, assume that aligning with Orientalist agenda will allow them to get closer to the Western culture they are appealing to; but unfortunately, self-Orientalist discourse is only recognised by the West as a ‘‘useful tool in preserving the hegemonic structure’’ of West/Orient cultural dichotomy (Alghamdi, p.94). In a nutshell, Self-Orientalism is like what Arthur Phillips describes as ‘‘cultural cringe’’ in the context of Australian culture, where the Australians feel ashamed or demonstrate inferiority complex toward their culture, identity or history and attempt to move away from their culture towards Western cultures as they internalize Western dominant narratives (Phillips, p.1; Kperogi, p.1).

3. Methodology

Drawing on Edward Said’s theorization of Orientalism, this study seeks to examine the manifestations of Orientalist tropes in Leila Aboulela’s Bird Summons as Arab diasporic literary work. To this end, the study adopts and conducts what Edward Said calls ‘‘contrapuntal reading’’ of the primary text to unravel the underlying Orientalist viewpoints that shape its storyline. 'Contrapuntal reading’ of a literary text, according to Marandi and Shabanirad is a ‘‘counter-narrative’’ that goes beyond the surface of a literary text to unravel the underlying Orientalist tendencies of the author in order to reveal the multiple cultural experiences and viewpoints that shape the text's storyline (p.27). The four principal dogmas of Orientalism, as theorized by Said in his Orientalism (1978) serve as the analytical framework for the data analysis.

4. Theoretical Framework

This study is situated within the context of postcolonial discourse, specifically, Edward Said’s theorization of Orientalism. Therefore, the data analysis is based on Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism as a postcolonial discourse. In addition, the study draws on the postcolonial theorizations of some major postcolonial thinkers and critics to undergird some positions in the analysis. Specifically, Michel Foucault’s theorization of discourse, and Gayatri Spivakand Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theorisations are borne in mind in the dataanalysis and interpretation.

5. Data Analysis and Discussion

Leila Aboulela's Bird Summons is a cultural product of what Homi Bhabha describes as ‘third space’ of culture in Western diaspora, where, according to Ahmed, migrants participate simultaneously in ‘‘social relations that embed them in more than one nation-state’’, forging and sustaining ‘‘multi-stranded social relations’’ that connect their ‘‘societies of origin and settlement’’ (p.1). However, beyond engagement with this theme, the storyline is subtly imbued with the images of self-Orientalism appealing to all the four principal dogmas of Orientalism.

The first dogma of Orientalism implies that Orientalist discourse has constructed a binary opposition between the ‘civilized’, ‘rational’ and ‘humane’ ‘West;’ and the ‘aberrant,’ ‘underdeveloped,’ and ‘inferior’ Middle East (Said, Orientalism, p.301). Edward Said notes with dismay that ‘writers’ have also accepted this basic distinction between the East and the West as the ‘‘starting point’’ for their ‘‘novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny, and so on’’ (Said, Orientalism, p.9). Accordingly, in Bird Summons, we see the juxtaposition of the image of the idealised West and ‘irrational’ Orient through the eyes of the three major characters – Salma, Moni and Iman. For instance, Salma, enlivened by caffeine on their way to the Scottish Highlands to visit Lady Evelyn’s gravesite, calls on her co-travellers (Moni and Iman) to ‘‘imagine a hypothetical situation’’ for fun. Moni’s hypothetical imagination wanders between killing her husband, Murtada, who lives in Saudi Arabia and insisting she joins him there, and killing herself and her disabled son, Adam. Then suddenly, she remembers that she was once counselled against such self-harm fantasies in Scotland. To demonstrate the cultural binary difference between the West and the Orient, Moni claims:

No one in Saudi Arabia would give her that (counsel). Instead, she would sit in her night dress with her air conditioner on full blast watching television while the Filipino maid fetched and carried. Whenever she wanted to go out she would put on her black abaya on top of her night dress and for many reasons, ranging from lack of wheelchair access to intrusive do-gooders and fools, she would not be able to take Adam with her (Aboulela, p.27).

This depiction aligns with the first dogma of Orientalism which sets the West and the Orient (the Middle-East in this context) in terms of binary oppositions, of which the West is considered developed and rational while the Orient is underdeveloped and irrational. As we can see here, the author leads the character of Moni to juxtapose her idealized West with adequate social services, peopled with rational beings capable of offering psychological support, and the ‘irrational’ Orient (Saudi Arabia in this case), where she would have to contend with foolish do-gooders as she would be confined to the home front in her black abaya. This Orientalist trope subtly speaks to the first dogma of Orientalism.

In another instance, we see the representation of the idealization of the West in Bird Summons through the main protagonist, Salma, where she tries to avoid being seen by her Scottish husband, David, through her Arab background thus:

She didn’t want him to be ashamed of her, to feel that he had picked her up from the back of beyond, and so she became more careful, often not at ease. No matter how many clients she massaged and no matter that she had given birth to children with Scottish blood, deep down his people would think that she was not really one of them, that she was not British enough (Aboulela, p.42).

This Orientalist trope also speaks to the first dogma of Orientalism which holds that there is absolute and systematic distinction between the West, which is regarded in Orientalist discourse as culturally superior, and the Orient, which is regarded as culturally inferior (Said, Orientalism, p.300).

The second dogma of Orientalism implies that Orientalist discourse is based on:

abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a "classical" Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities (Said, Orientalism, p. 300).

In other words, Orientalist stereotypical constructions and assumptions about the Orient are based on assumptions drawn from classical Oriental texts, not based on present reality of the Orientals’; or as Jim puts it, the second dogma ‘‘holds that conclusions drawn from ancient traditions, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities’’ (p.9). That is to say, Orientalist knowledge of the Orient and its culture is drawn from one-sided historical accounts and biased interpretation of ancient Islamic texts. For instance, the concept of Harem as an inviolable secluded area exclusively reserved for Women in Muslim homes, dating back to the days of the Ottoman Empire in the 16^th century is one of the sources of Orientalist misconception about the Oriental woman. According to Hasewinkle, the Ottoman imperial Harem, which was off-limits to outsiders, except women, was such an Islamic institution that immensely shaped Orientalists’ understanding of the Ottoman culture and society. The secrecy associated with the Ottoman Harem, according to Hasewinkle, led the Western observers, especially the Orientalists to begin to fantasize and mystify the Harem as a place for reducing the women to ‘‘sex objects’’ (p.7). Accordingly, a typical Oriental woman is seen as sensual, lacking in agency to speak for herself, helplessly dependent on men, and a victim of Oriental patriarchy, in need of Western intervention (see Said, Orientalism, p.6). In line with this assumption, the Muslim woman, for instance, is believed to be simply born into such a defined culture, and is said to live it like a destiny (see Jim, p.11). 

Accordingly, as the storyline of Bird Summons unfolds further, Aboulela presents Iman, as Awajan also puts it, as a completely ‘‘dependent Arab woman’’ who, unlike Salma and Moni that have adjusted to the Western life, is not capable of living her life independent of a man (Awajan, p.206). Speaking to this sentiment, the author paints the image of Iman in Bird Summons thus:

Iman’s greatest asset was her looks, her finest skills was in drawing men to her; zero qualifications, English language minimal. What sort of job could she do? Iman was lazy too. With Salma’s children, she watched children’s TV and she never got bored. Imagine being told, you’re too beautiful to ever toil, you’er you are to be kept home in a fine state, you’er created to be pampered and adored – all that Iman heard as she was growing up (Aboulela, p.73).

In the same vein, Iman, who is depicted here as totally dependent on men because of her ‘zero qualifications,’ is also depicted as being burdened by her beauty - divorcedthree times. She marries her first husband while in her home country of Syria at the tender age of fifteen. Her second husband brought her to Scotland and got himself jailed. Her third husband, Ibrahim, who is on foreign scholarship, marries her with the intention of safeguarding himself against ‘sin’ while his stay in Scotland lasts, but is forced by his parents to divorce her as they get wind of his self-arranged marriage.

The hijab narrative is also central in Orientalist discourse about Arab and Muslim women. The hijab is considered, in Orientalist discourse, as a symbol of patriarchal oppression of women and cultural backwardness; removing it therefore, symbolizes freedom from that patriarchal subjugation and oppression. According to Hasan:

Feminist Orientalist representations of Muslim women have reduced the Muslim social system to the veil, now considered an icon of cultural backwardness, and “its lifting” as “the most important sign of reform and modernization. A hijab-clad woman appears to be a misfit among her Western and “modern” sisters. (Hasan, p.43).

Accordingly, Iman’s self-perception and attitude to hijab as portrayed in Bird Summons reflects this sentiment. At a point during their journey to the Scottish Highlands to visit the final resting place of Lady Evelyn, whom they hold as role model; Iman, who is depicted as a serial divorcee burdened by her beauty, feels burdened by the hijab she wears, saying she wears hijab because that is how ‘‘my mother dressed and the women in my village. Or that’s how my husband of the time wanted me to dress’’ (Aboulela, p.183). This suggests that the hijab is around her neck because it is socially sanctioned, not a voluntary choice. To free herself from this socially imposed burden of hijab, therefore, Iman declares ‘‘I will stop wearing hijab. That’s it. I will take my headscarf off’’ (Aboulela, p.183).

As a hijab-clad woman, Iman feels she is a misfit among her Western and “modern” sisters – Salma and Moni, and therefore removes it off to symbolise her freedom. In feminist Orientalist discourse, Iman needs ‘‘to make her body visible’’ to ‘‘assume her place in the Western ‘modern’ society on an equal footing’’, which will make her “capable of being re-codified, redefined, and reformulated according to new, Western codes’’ (Hasan, p. 43). But unfortunately, as Edward Said puts it, whatever the Oriental does to move closer to being seen as a Western-culture-compliant, they remain ‘‘a despised heretic’’ (Said, p.301). Symbolizing this notion, for instance, Iman remains an ‘‘unidentified creature, a mix of mammal and reptile, horrific and yet beautiful’’after their symbolic transformation in the Scottish Highlands (Aboulela, p.221), suggesting that even if the Oriental woman attempted to transform to Westerner, she remained what the Orientalists see her as – inferior, uncivilized, horrible. All these assumptions are based on abstraction about the Oriental woman which is rooted in Ottoman era Harem, not on the current reality of the Oriental woman. The current reality on ground is that wearing veil or hijab for the Muslim woman is a matter of choice and comfort, rather than compulsion; and hijab is not exclusively Muslim woman’s tradition. Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church-goers also wear hijab on Sabbath day to cover from head to toe.

The third dogma of Orientalism suggests that:

the Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore, it is assumed that a highly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a Western standpoint is inevitable and even scientifically objective (Said, Orientalism, p.301).

In other words, as the West is progressing, the Orient is eternally stuck in its classical past. In line with this notion, Orientalists view Islam and Islamic culture as ‘‘monolithic, scornful of human life, (and) unchanging’’ (Encyclopedia of Islamic Studies, 2010, p.10). Accordingly, the irreducible minimum tenet of Orientalism is to accept this age long European tradition of representing the Orient and the West in terms of binary oppositions in which the Orient is viewed as culturally static and incapable of changing. We see this representation of the Orient as ‘monolithic and unchanging’ as the novel opens with a starting incident which sets members of the Arab Speaking Women Group in Scotland as people who allow emotion to dominate their sense of reasoning as they resist change; a depiction that appeals to the third Orientalist dogma that sees the Orientals as culturally 'unchanging' people, who live their lives according ‘‘set rules inscribed in sacred texts, not in response to the changing demands of life’’ (Mamdani, p.1). This Orientalist trope is subtly depicted in Bird Summons as Salma, who represents Western 'rational' value of cultural adjustment based on changing demands of life, appeals to the other Arab Speaking Women’s sense of reasoning to see Lady Evelyn, a British convert, as their role model:

She worshipped as we worshipped, though she kept her own culture, wore Edwardian fashion, shot deer and left instructions for bagpipes to be played at her funeral. She is the mother of Scottish Islam and we need her as our role model (Aboulela, p.2).

However, as the Arab women see the portrait of Lady Evelyn without hijab, instead of seeing reasons for cultural shift, they resist the call thus:

Why didn't she wear hijab? Why wasn't she in touch with other Muslims? Sounds like an eccentric imperialist no offense ... The women started dropping out of the trip because their friends were dropping out or because their husbands discouraged them (Aboulela, pp.2-3).

The depiction of the Arab women resisting persuasion to see Lady Evelyn, who represents cultural compromise, as role model, simply because she did not wear hijab during her life time, paints an Orientalist image of Arab women who, in the words of Mamdani, live their lives strictly based on ‘‘set rules inscribed in sacred texts, not in response to the changing demands of life’’ (p.1). This depiction subtly appeals to the third dogma of Orientalism which holds the view that the Orient is eternally stuck in the past. In other words, this Orientalist trope reinforces the Orientalist discourse that constructs the Orient as unchanging, especially if the change requires cultural adjustment that goes against their sacred belief system as enshrined in their sacred texts.

In a similar fashion, the third dogma of Orientalism also suggests that the Orient is culturally stuck in the past and incapable of making progress. Accordingly, as the storyline progresses, Aboulela leads the character of Iman to demonstrate how culturally static, in Orientalist terms, is the Orient. We see this representation again after the magical transformation of the major characters, where Iman transforms to an ‘‘unidentified creature, a mix of mammal and reptile, horrific and yet beautiful’’ (Aboulela, p.221; Awajan, p.207). Here, Aboulela insinuates that even after cultural and physical transformation in the ‘third space of culture,’ Iman remains a ‘sensual’ and ‘cruel’ creature; a typical image of the Orient in Western Orientalist discourse.

The fourth dogma of Orientalism, according to Said, holds that the Orient is essentially violent - something to be feared and controlled by pacification, research and development, or by outright occupation whenever possible (p.301). As such, Orientalist literary discourse about the Orient tends to focus on tales of violence. Accordingly, after the magical transformation of Salma, Moni, and Iman on the Scottish Highlands on their way to visit the gravesite of Lady Evelyn, Iman, who is earlier depicted as a character whose ‘‘greatest asset was her looks’’, and ‘‘her finest skills were in drawing men to her; with zero qualifications’’, symbolically appears to Moni as a ‘horrific’ and ‘repulsive’ being (Aboulela, p.73 and 221). This symbolic representation appeals to the fourth Orientalist dogma that sees the Orient and the Orientals as something to be either feared or controlled, even after their cultural transformation. This explains why today, in Arab Western diaspora, Islamophobia remains a major social concern among even those Arabs and Muslims that have lived in the West for a considerable period of time.

6. Conclusion

This paper has examined the representations of Self-Orientalism in the novel Bird Summons. The article argues that the storyline of the novel revolves around the theme of cross-cultural negotiations in the ‘third space’ of culture. However, beyond engagement with this theme, this analysis demonstrates that the storyline of the novel is sparsely and subtly dotted with the images of Self-Orientalism, appealing to all the four principal dogmas of Orientalism as espoused in Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978). This suggests that some contemporary Oriental writers and intellectuals in Arab Western Diaspora are complicit in Western cultural imperialism because they are heavily influenced by Orientalist discourse. As theoretical insight derivable from this study, the study posits that the four principal dogmas of Orientalism, as a structured lens for the analysis of Orientalist discourse, is a veritable analytical framework for the analysis of power dynamics between the West and its inferior ‘Others’, including Africa as Western ‘Other’. This is because, although Orientalism focuses on West’s relationship with Islam and the Orient, as a discursive mode, it models a wide spectrum of institutional constructions of the colonial ‘Other’, including the discussion, study, and general representation of Africa in the West, at least since the nineteenth century. Therefore, this study concludes by advocating for the adoption of the four principal dogmas of Orientalism as analytical framework for the analysis of Orientalist Africanist discourses, where Africa is stereotypically portrayed using similar rubrics to the Orient’s – in literature, news media, and other forms of cultural expressions.

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