ABSTRACT
Arab American writers, according to Khaled Mattawa and Munir Akash, have the power to subvert the commonly vilified image of Arabs in the United States. Television series, for example, tended after 9/11 to de-vilify Arab men by using Arab characters in an unexpected manner, and subverting the audience's expectations by providing a positive view of Arab or Muslim characters. In the 1990s, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, Arab American feminism developed and gained force, as the war highlighted the ambivalence towards the Arab American community in the United States. Arab American women writers have been the engine moving Arab American literature forward. In their texts, they reflect on gender issues, transpatriarchies, and masculinities, while also celebrating the importance of literature. As their prose focuses on gender issues, and given the post-9/11 context that emphasized Arab male vilification, Arab American women writers are providing new and mostly unstereotypical representations of Arab men.
