Islam, Turks, and Armenians in The Forty Days of Musa Dagh: A postcolonial approach to Franz Werfel

Franz Werfel's 1933 novel about an Armenian uprising against the Ottoman Empire during the year of what is widely considered to be the Armenian Genocide (1915) brings with it some dilemmas, especially when read in the light of by‐now familiar debates concerning Western representations of Turks and Muslims. A novel that is, on the one hand, racist and Orientalist on many points in its depiction of an “Orient” and “Orientals,” it also problematizes some of the difficulties and taboos postcolonial approaches face regarding the Ottoman Empire and its treatment of Christian minorities. The article highlights these problems and ends with a consideration of Werfel's own very positive representation of France and French culture in the book, a Francophilia that suggests a number of colonial blindnesses in the novel.