"LEILA ABOULELA'S LYRICS ALLEY: CROSSING THE SUDAN, EGYPT, AND BRITAIN

Abstract

This article scrutinises the theoretical and practical modalities which make Aboulela's text a site of intersection between fluctuating territories. Lyrics Alley testifies to the way in which the experiences of travelling and translating act as contemporary metaphors for Muslim subjects, and also surveys the procedures by which Sudan, Egypt and Britain become non-permament geographical spaces. Migrant characters who traverse Sudanese alleyways, Egyptian metropolitan streets and British routes act as translators as well as travellers, whose journeys towards in-between places lead them to cross boundaries, entering new territories and creating new subjectivities.