Pride and Prejudice (1813) is transposed onto an Indian-origin Muslim community in modern-day Toronto in Uzma Jamaluddin’s Ayesha at Last (2019), and the novel is as much about being Muslim in the West as it is about being an Austen adaptation. These creative departures from the Austen hypotext contribute to the novel’s positive reception, which can be gauged from the 4.4 stars rating by 1184 users on Amazon. Ronald Robertson (1995) argues that “diversity sells,” and this article examines Amazon user reviews to demonstrate how Jalaluddin’s Muslim glocalization of Pride and Prejudice makes her novel a success and reveals the market for such diverse stories. She makes a commendable effort to make space for practicing Muslim protagonists in the Austen oeuvre and succeeds in providing realistic depictions of many aspects of the Muslim community. However, the novel’s unfortunate surrender to Western stereotypes of the “terrorist” Muslim male to appeal to the implicit white reader ultimately undermines its authenticity and does not fully represent the breadth of Muslim experience, thereby demonstrating that continued effort is required to overhaul the publishing industry’s employee and audience base to enable the inclusion of more equitably drawn minority characters.
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