American Dervish is the first novel from Ayad Akhtar, a Pakistani-American screenwriter and actor. Akhtar tells the story of Hayat, a young boy from a culturally Muslim family growing up in Wisconsin in the 1980s.When the beautiful and intelligent Mina comes to live with them, Hayat’s world is dramatically changed. While neither of his parents are devoutly religious, the family identifies culturally with Islam. Mina gives Hayat his first Quran and they begin to study the text together. He experiences a religious awakening of sorts which will have both wondrous and disastrous consequences for him and his family.

The novel is set in the 1980s because Akhtar was interested in depicting ‘a time before the world had politicised being Muslim’. This is an interesting approach and I think quite successful up to a point. Disappointingly however some of the characters will only reinforce Western stereotypes, particularly of Muslim men. Akhtar’s writing is clearly inspired by his filmmaking background; he cites Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese as influences. The prose is very visual and the pace and structure of the novel have a certain filmic quality. Unfortunately, the characters can also feel like actors at times, more caricatures than real people.

In the preface, Akthar writes that he ‘wanted to write a book that gave the American audience a felt sense of what it was like to grow up Muslim in America’. American Dervish is certainly interesting in this regard, and Hayat’s story vividly addresses the question of what it means to be both Muslim and Western.

Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton