Looking to find a larger audience for Taqwacores, a cult novel by Michael Muhammad Knight about a fictional American Muslim punk rock scene, Brooklyn publisher Soft Skull Media is rushing a new edition of the novel into print.
Knight was recently profiled in the New York Times, but Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash signed him to a book deal about six months ago. Nash first encountered the author in 2005 when Taqwacores was published by Autonomedia, another New York City small press. “He imagined what a Muslim punk rock underground would be like, even though it didn't really exist,” Nash said. “He's channeling something larger than his Muslim punk rock subculture. His books speak to any group that feels marginalized.”
In addition to Taqwacores, Soft Skull will reprint a book of essays and publish three other books by the author, including a memoir, in 2009. Taqwacores was originally scheduled to pub in February, but Soft Skull is releasing the new edition this month, and will release Knight's autobiography, Impossible Man, in April. Nash said the house is rushing 3,000 copies of Taqwacores into stores in January and expects to go back to press for another 3,000 copies. Nash plans to release 7,000—10,000 copies of Impossible Man.
Taqwacores was self-published in 2003 by Knight, who was born Catholic in upstate New York and converted to Islam. A self-described Muslim combination of Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson, Knight has come to represent a generation of Muslim-Americans alienated from both mainstream America and from radical Islamic fundamentalism.
In May Soft Skull will reissue Knight's Blue Eyed Devil, a roadtrip account of indigenous American Islam, and in July will publish a new novel, Osama Van Halen. In November the house will publish Journey to the End of Islam, a nonfiction account of Knight's understanding of Islam and his experiences as an American Muslim.
