Conservation and transformation of religious identity in postcolonial literature: The examples of Hanif Kureishi's Black Album and Zadie Smith's White Teeth

This study basically aims to question the possibilities of reaching social reality through fictional texts. The novel as a literary genre is determined as the focus of the study and the concept of religious identity is tried to be examined through this genre. In this respect, centering upon the postcolonial literature and postcolonial novel, Hanif Kureishi's Black Album and Zadie Smith's White Teeth are chosen as sample texts. Through the characters in these novels, what kind of differences the religious identities of immigrant individuals may contain between generations is revealed. In this context, it is observed that firstgeneration immigrants tend to preserve their religious identities while the religious identities of second-generation immigrants tend to be radicalized by being transformed. The study aims to trace these differences regarding the religious identities of immigrant individuals by using narrative and discourse analysis methods within the scope of qualitative research. Thus, the analysis of the novels is carried out with reference to the key concepts of identity theories and postcolonial theory which gained importance, especially in the second half of the 20th century. At this point, the study is tried to be concluded by focusing on the concepts of Manuel Castells within the scope of identity theories, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Homi Bhabha within the scope of postcolonial theory.