ABSTRACT

In this interview, Rukhsana Yasmin describes her experiences as a literary agent from a Muslim cultural background. She recalls how, early in her career, she was somewhat limitingly regarded as a representative of “diversity” within the industry, but also notes the advantages of her insider’s ability to recognize potential areas of sensitivity and broker conversations between authors and publishers to ensure the writer’s experience is respected in the editing process and that unconscious biases resulting from a predominantly white, middle-class majority viewpoint are minimized. Although she still receives comparatively few novels addressing faith, Rukhsana is heartened by the success of recent essay anthologies by Muslim women. Along with the determination of younger writers to resist being pigeonholed by producing tonally and thematically varied work that better reflects their experiences, such publications push back against the trend for Muslim trauma narratives that have been a staple feature of minority publishing.

摘要

在这次采访中，鲁克萨娜·亚斯明 (Rukhsana Yasmin) 描述了她作为穆斯林文化背景的文学经纪人的经历。她回忆起，在她的职业生涯早期，她在某种程度上被有限地视为行业内“多元化”的代表，但她也指出，她的内部人士有能力识别潜在的敏感领域，并促成作者和出版商之间的对话，以确保作者和出版商之间的对话。在编辑过程中，作者的经验受到尊重，并且将由白人为主的中产阶级多数观点所造成的无意识偏见降至最低。尽管鲁克萨娜收到的有关信仰的小说相对较少，但她对穆斯林女性最近的散文选集的成功感到鼓舞。