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Through readings of postcolonial theory and examination of post-9/11 novels, film, and hip-hop music, this book studies how North African immigrants to Spain translate and transfer cultural and political memory from one land to another.

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Introduction Memory, Return, and the ´Other Side´ Romancing Europe: Postcolonial Foundational Fictions Europe via Spain: Media, Islam, and the Sounds of Immigrant Identity Conclusion

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"In this lively, refreshingly original, and thought-provoking work, Lara Dotson-Renta draws upon recent novels, films, songs and other media to trace the flow of people and ideas between Morocco and Spain. With her focus on traslado a notion of ´translation´ that can also signal, in Spanish, the movement of bodies across borders she explores the senses of familiarity, estrangement, and anxiety that characterize contemporary Spanish-Moroccan encounters. As a robust Moroccan Muslim immigrant population takes root in Spain, will the country now become a new Andalusia (reviving its connections to an earlier Islamic heritage), a gateway to modern Europe, or something else entirely? Dotson-Renta maps out these questions about cultural identity in the current age of mass migration, and does so in a way that will appeal to scholars of Spain, North Africa, and the wider Mediterranean world."

Heather J. Sharkey, associate professor of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

"Dotson-Renta suggests a new way of looking at the contemporary phenomenon of Islamic immigration to Europe, setting it within a history of movement between the shores of the Mediterranean, particularly between Morocco and Spain. As the author rightly contends, this relationship has its origin in Moorish Andalusia, a reference that has resonance in contemporary fiction in several languages and even, very interestingly, in contemporary rap and hip-hop music. In focusing on a small number of works, she manages to include a diversity of languages and genres, ranging from an autobiographical piece in Catalan to popular music to internationally known literary prizewinners like Tahar ben Jelloun´s Partir."

Mary Jean Green, Edward Tuck Professor of French, Dartmouth College

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Lara N. Dotson-Renta is an assistant professor & assistant dean of Career Services at Quinnipiac University.

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