ABSTRACT
Literary representations of cross-cultural romance are a natural nexus for considering the issues of postcoloniality, race, gender, and sexuality. The cross-cultural romance is a recurrent trope in global Muslim fiction, providing rich insights into the negotiation of gendered cultural expectations, racial, ethnic, and national hierarchies as well as religious sensibilities. Additionally, a frequent aspect of these global Muslim cross-cultural romances is the conversion of one of the romantic partners to Islam for the sake of the relationship. As this trope is translated into local Muslim fictions and contexts, it can highlight the distinctiveness of local Islamic practices and identities. This chapter will compare the translation of this global trope into the local context in two Bruneian novels, Norsiah Gapar’s Pengabdian (Submission) and Aisha Malik’s Jewel, with a brief elucidation on its deployment in American literature. In doing so, this chapter will examine how local Islamic practices, identities, and narratives are in conversation with and constrained by global Muslim discourse.
