An imperfect resistance: Kureishi’s rhetorical strategies as critique in the short-story "My Son the Fanatic".

Hanif Kureishi’s work has widely focused on the depiction of multiethnic cultural attitudes and on the shortcomings of the British multicultural project. Well before the recent dramatic events, the author especially concentrated on Islamic fundamentalism in the UK in the novel The Black Album (1995) and in the short story “My Son the Fanatic” (1997), a year later a successful film. The paper focuses on the analysis of the narrative and rhetorical strategies deployed by Kureishi to deal with the issue of fundamentalism, rising the question of the ethic responsibility of the author in working out his representational practices. While providing a portrait of contemporary British society and hinting at the reasons that can explain why the fundamentalist version of Islam is so appealing for young generations in the UK, Kureishi enacts a literary strategy that furthers the sociological exploration of the phenomenon, to include and ponder on its linguistic features. He also provides a critique of the communicative model on which the fundamentalist attitude rests. Caricature and satire prevail in The Black Album, but the risk of naturalizing stereotypes of religious and cultural attitudes is real, so it raises the question of the writer’s responsibility in dealing with fundamentalism in literature, since rhetorical strategies impinge on the ethic rather than on the aesthetic side of this delicate topic. The short story “My Son the Fanatic” undermines stereotypes, foregrounding and questioning the stereotypical phrasing that voices fundamentalist issues. The use of point of view and the open paradoxical ending of the short story prove to be effective instruments to enhance awareness of the risks connected to embracing highly ideological representational strategies.