Multiculturalism or Islamophobia?: a Critical Analysis of John Updike's Terrorist

This book is an attempt to analyze and evaluate John Updike's Terrorist which stands as one of the most radical, unexpected works in Updike?s highly diverse catalog. Set in the America changed by 9/11, the narrative gestures observations and reflections on American multiculturalism, religious radicalism, stereotypes, and the role of religion in human life. Terrorist, which also pivots on the revived discourses about Samuel Huntington?s ?clash of civilizations? arguments, also exploits the clichés propagated by Western media outlets. Despite Updike?s gifted way with words, clichés and stereotypes at times stifle the novel which tries to advance the thesis that the post-Soviet foreign devil is Islam, a religion whose physical immediacy and challenge to the West seems, as the novel assumes, as diabolical and brutal now as it has never been before. Terrorist, thus, considers Islam as the instigator of terror and is regarded as a religion that is at war with life and civilization itself. Unfortunately, the novel conveys a rather pessimistic vision of multiculturalism in twenty-first century American society, yet it provides space for the exploration of conflicting values.