Through a comparative investigation on Arab writings in both France and the United States, this paper explores how these works are speaking to the unfolding political events and national decisions occurring on both a macro and micro level in the United States, France, and the Islamic world; it furthermore looks at how Arab writers in the Post Cold War era are challenging misrepresentations of the Islamic world made by the West. Although France and the United States differed in their political stances towards the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, both nations generally agreed on the view that the Islamic world was a political and cultural threat. This view inevitably transferred onto the members of their own populations with Arab origins. Arab writers emerged in both France and the U.S. during the 1980s and 90s, giving voice to the nations’ Arab communities and countering misconceived views of the Arab world at home and abroad rooted in stereotypes, racism, and cultural conflict.

In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Arab American writers have felt a new urgency in their writing as they witnessed widespread labeling of Arab Americans as terrorists. New York poet Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian American, circulated a poem shortly after the attacks with these lines: “Please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now. / please god, after the second plane, please, don’t let it be / anyone / who looks like my brothers.” Arab American and Arab French writers are increasingly addressing political matters and the effects that they are having on their communities, including such issues as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Gulf War, September 11th and its aftermath, the Iraq War of 2003, and the global “war on terrorism.” In Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh’s short story, “Bistrot des brumes” (2003), the narrator experiences flashbacks on the political coups and terrorism in Algeria and equates the chaos with the World Trade Center: “Je me traîne jusqu’à la fenêtre. J’ouvre. Je ne me trompais pas: raz de marée sur Bab el Oued. World Despair Center. Personne.”