"THE LAST DAYS OF MUHAMMAD ATTA": A PORTRAIT OF THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST Cover Image

"THE LAST DAYS OF MUHAMMAD ATTA": A PORTRAIT OF THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST
"THE LAST DAYS OF MUHAMMAD ATTA": A PORTRAIT OF THE ISLAMIC TERRORIST

Author(s): Susana Bocsaru
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Editura Arhipelag XXI
Keywords: 9/11; Muhammad Atta; Islamic terrorist; internal motivation; the Muslim Other;

Summary/Abstract: Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Martin Amis felt that writing fiction seemed like a "pointlessly indulgent exercise", and writers needed to attend to "the facts of life." However, in "The Last Days of Muhammad Atta", Amis produces a fictionalized version of the attacks and attempts to paint a portrait of the new global enemy, the Islamic terrorist. Even though the story is a third person narration which typically confers objectivity, the inner motivations of Muhammad Atta, the first hijacker to crash a plane into the World Trade Center, are sought, in an effort to identify "the core reason" behind such abominable acts.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 344-348
  • Page Count: 5
  • Language: English