About Article

Alan Gibbons’ An Act of Love and Anna Perera’s Guantanamo Boy offer a poignant treatment of a personal and political desire for vengeance in response to terrorism, and of the consequent erosion of particular communities. This article provides a critical reading of Gibbons’ and Perera’s novels through the lens of postcolonial and terrorism studies. It argues that they can be read as instances of the refashioning of individual and communal identities in response to increased surveillance and disciplinary measures overseen by the British state and shows that the undermining of simplistic dichotomies in these novels is the primary route by which principles of familial and communal responsibility are re-established. From this perspective, the novels are seen to open post-9/11 British social and political relations to postcolonial critique. The article draws attention to the contemporary children’s novel as a socially and politically engaged form that offers powerful fictional interventions into the post-9/11 landscape, where some groups have been affected more than others by the repercussions of acts of terrorism and violence