Transculturalism in Ahdaf Soueif's and Zadie Smith's Selected Novels: A Comparative Study

Within the framework of post-colonial theories of hybridity, this thesis investigates the remarkable role of transculturalism in shaping hybrid identities as handled by two postcolonial hybrid novelists: the Egyptian-British Ahdaf Soueif and the Jamaican- American Zadie Smith. As a concept of cultural merging, transculturalism is explored throughout this thesis as a humane, fruitful interaction between diverse cultures. Away from conflicts and hostility, preaching tolerance and reconciliation, transculturalism is celebrated as a process of merging cultural identities and the sequent creation of new cultural phenomena. Transculturalism, in this sense, forges a remarkable link between Soueif and Smith. The study explores the common belief in the importance and possibility of humane coexistence and cultural reconciliation, which both writers strongly express in their novels In the Eye of the Sun (1992) and White Teeth (2000). After analyzing the two selected novels, the thesis emphasizes the cultural affinities between the two writers' reflections of the colonizer-colonized, or Self-Other, relationships.