ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the use of humour to create new affiliative networks and subvert power hierarchies in the work of British Muslim Pakistani-heritage author, Ayisha Malik. It argues that Malik’s appropriation of the chick lit genre to engage a Muslim protagonist enables a redeployment of the genre’s humour so that social norms that work to stereotype and to other Pakistanis and Muslims are acknowledged and subverted. Through the novel’s inclusive humour, which positions readers as insiders on the various jokes, Malik creates a British-Pakistani Muslim everywoman.
