9/11 and its Literary– Religious Aftermaths

This chapter will attend first to some of the religious aftermaths of 9/11 and then to some literary ones. The discussion will focus on the United States and attends to literary fiction in particular. “In the last decade,” John Duvall writes, “American fiction has articulated important political, aesthetic, and psychological contexts for understanding the wounds of September 11.” ¹ To that list I would add religious contexts. Critical accounts of literature about 9/11 have tended to focus on the problem of representation—what can literature possibly say in the wake of such a traumatic event? ² This chapter will focus specifically on how various Anglo-American writers have gravitated to religious themes in trying to represent what happened on 9/11 and afterwards.