Abstract

Family Business is a short story collection concerned with characters who must deal with an uprooting in both a literal, and an emotional, sense. The characters struggle with the consequences of being dislocated from their place of origin, from their traditions and from their mother tongue. The stories explore the different stages of immigration through generational conflicts, the difficulties in maintaining ties to cultural traditions, as well as the stereotyping and racism that occur within the characters’ Muslim communities. These stories also grapple with ideas about assimilation, and how different people negotiate the act of traversing various cultures. The primary setting, St. John’s, Newfoundland, helps to illustrate the challenges of integrating into a small, isolated town whose traditional population shows little diversity. Some characters find freedom after leaving what they often view as a claustrophobic Muslim community, while others continue their struggle to find a place within that community. Many of the stories adopt a third person, omniscient POV, which allows for a broader context in which to understand these characters, many of who are caught between two, distinct cultural worlds.