The claim that literature is apolitical is an old liberal humanist canard

Evidence

This faux naïf pretence that literature stands clear of political taint is a very old liberal humanist canard. To see it appear again in this context—at a time when it was de rigeur to take sides in the war on terror—strikes an oddly anachronistic note. It is a claim hardly borne out by Amis’s own approach in those works of short fiction that are also included in the collection. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 98

Against the contemptible weak thinking of religion, Amis ranges the playfully rational individual voices of writers, supposedly all espousing “the ideology of no ideology” (19), whatever that may be. This faux naïf pretence that literature stands clear of political taint is a very old liberal humanist canard. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 98

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s hinge work: this complicates any easy reading of Hamid or Naqvi as simply ‘literary’ rather than political — fiction is always already positioned.
• DEFINE: Names the ‘ideology of no ideology’ — the stance that enables fiction to deny its own political taint while quietly reinforcing dominant frames.
• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘ideology of no ideology’ as an alibi that lets Western reviewing frames discipline Muslim-authored novels.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 98