REVIEW: Exposing problems Muslim immigrants face in NZ

Review of How To Be A Bad Muslim and Other Essays, by Mohamed Hassan

Abstract

How To Be A Bad Muslim and Other Essays, by Mohamed Hassan. Auckland: Penguin/Random House, 2022. 208 pages. ISBN 9780143776215.

This is a collection of 19 short essays by Mohamed Hassan, an award-winning poet and international journalist. He was born in Cairo, but moved to Auckland, New Zealand, at the age of eight. This personal history underlies much of his writing: his fond memories of Egypt and its collectivist society and extended families, versus his adolescence as a migrant with a clearly identifiable Muslim name in individualist New Zealand. After 9/11, suspicions deepened and Muslims were subject to collective guilt and racial profiling, despite that fact that Muslims around the world condemned the attacks.