“Gillian Whitlock’s Soft Weapons is a beautifully attentive reading of the ‘intimate work of self-invention’ in the life writings of authors at risk in the war on terror. Whitlock’s focus is on the textual cultures through which they pass, their transit through uses ranging from their reception as eloquent acts of witness through propaganda, and the commodification of cultural difference. In its attention to the networks of relations through which texts are realized, Soft Weapons is politically engaged literary history of the most productive kind.”

John Frow, University of Melbourne

“At once a heartfelt and thoughtful affirmation of the power of autobiography, and an intelligent and trenchant critique of the commodification and, indeed, political co-optation of life stories in our current global moment, Soft Weapons makes for fascinating and surprising reading. By focusing on the explosion of life writing from the Islamic Middle East, Whitlock calls for an expansion of our conceptual and theoretical understanding of life writing so that we might account for new subgenres—blogs, autoethnographies, and ‘autographics.’ Her attention to the marketing of lives and life stories offers a welcome contribution to current controversies about authenticity and ‘truth’ in autobiography.”

Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University

"An engaging and thoughtful new study of contemporary Middle Eastern autobiography...With its dire implications for anyone still devoted to humanistic ideals about literature, Soft Weapons is an especially timely and important collection of essays."

Jasmin Darznik | Women's Review of Books

"Soft Weapons is a stunning scholarly and intellectual tour de force, a model of excellent critical reading, and a sound argument for how and why reading—and reading well—still matters.  In fact, Soft Weapons teaches why reading critically—to consider the transits of books as market commodities, tools of propaganda, acts of often compromised political resistance, authentic testimonies, and repositories of highly charged cross-cultural exchange—matters more urgently now than ever."

Victoria Kuttainen | Politics and Culture