Internment

Internment takes place in an imagined near future in which, following the 2016 presidential election, Muslim Americans have been registered, deprived of their rights, and ultimately imprisoned in a World War II-style internment camp in the California desert. As the novel’s 17-year-old protagonist, Layla, and various other characters note at various points, the fact that this happened at all (historically and in the novel’s present) suggests that, despite making promises guaranteeing religious freedom and…

In Internment, there’s a sharp divide between how young and old people in the Mobius internment camp view their situation and what they should do about it. For the most part, older people, such as Layla and Ayesha’s parents, insist that the best course of action is to stay quiet and follow instructions, as they believe that they and their family members will be less likely to suffer violence or mistreatment this way…

Within the world of Internment, openly identifying as Muslim is dangerous: using people’s answers about their religion on the most recent census, the president of the United States has created a “Muslim registry” and incarcerates hundreds of Muslim Californians in the desert. However, Layla, her parents, and other Muslim characters all suggest, at various points, that being Muslim and openly identifying as such is something they all must do with pride and is…

Seventeen-year-old Layla spends a lot of time thinking through how the United States got to the place it is in the novel’s (fictional) present. Again and again, she comes back to the same idea: that while the president of the United States and the Director of Camp Mobius are the cruel, bigoted architects of Muslim internment, they’re only able to successfully disempower their targets because of the general population’s inaction and complacency. In this, Layla…