Jinnen är ett frekvent förekommande väsen i arabisk kultur och litteratur alltsedan förislamsk tid. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att undersöka hur jinnerna beskrivs och representeras i Fenixtrilogin av Sonia Nimr. Deras narrativa och litterära funktioner i böckerna relateras till deras representation och funktion i arabisk kultur och i ungdomsfantasy. Mieke Bals klassifikation av roller i en narrativ cykel används i analysen. Resultatet är att jinnen har en stark koppling till den klassiska bilden av en jinn i arabisk litteratur och kultur, men att några detaljer skiljer sig. Mest framträdande är jinnens entydigt goda egenskaper och funktioner i berättelsen. Slutsatsen är att trilogin ligger tydligt i linje med annan fantasylitteratur för ungdomar, men att jinnen har en unik roll som hjälpare eller god kraft. Den får i och med det en tydlig pedagogisk roll, i linje med barn- och ungdomslitteraturen. / The jinn is a frequently occurring entity in Arabic culture and literature since pre-Islamic times. The purpose of this literature study is to examine how the jinn are described and represented in the Thunderbird trilogy by Sonia Nimr. Their narrative and literary functions in the books relate to their representation and function in Arab culture and in young adult fantasy. Mieke Bal’s classification of roles in the narrative cycle is used in the analysis. The result is that the jinn bears a strong resemblance to the classical image of a jinn in Arabic literature and culture, but that some details differ. Most prominent are the jinn’s unambiguously good qualities and functions in the story. The conclusion is that the trilogy is clearly in line with other fantasy literature for young adults, but that the jinn has a unique role as a helper or as the good power. It therefore has a clear pedagogical role in line with children’s literature and Young Adult literature.

Jinnen är ett frekvent förekommande väsen i arabisk kultur och litteratur alltsedan förislamsk tid. Syftet med denna litteraturstudie är att undersöka hur jinnerna beskrivs och representeras i Fenixtrilogin av Sonia Nimr. Deras narrativa och litterära funktioner i böckerna relateras till deras representation och funktion i arabisk kultur och i ungdomsfantasy. Mieke Bals klassifikation av roller i en narrativ cykel används i analysen. Resultatet är att jinnen har en stark koppling till den klassiska bilden av en jinn i arabisk litteratur och kultur, men att några detaljer skiljer sig. Mest framträdande är jinnens entydigt goda egenskaper och funktioner i berättelsen. Slutsatsen är att trilogin ligger tydligt i linje med annan fantasylitteratur för ungdomar, men att jinnen har en unik roll som hjälpare eller god kraft. Den får i och med det en tydlig pedagogisk roll, i linje med barn- och ungdomslitteraturen. / The jinn is a frequently occurring entity in Arabic culture and literature since pre-Islamic times. The purpose of this literature study is to examine how the jinn are described and represented in the Thunderbird trilogy by Sonia Nimr. Their narrative and literary functions in the books relate to their representation and function in Arab culture and in young adult fantasy. Mieke Bal’s classification of roles in the narrative cycle is used in the analysis. The result is that the jinn bears a strong resemblance to the classical image of a jinn in Arabic literature and culture, but that some details differ. Most prominent are the jinn’s unambiguously good qualities and functions in the story. The conclusion is that the trilogy is clearly in line with other fantasy literature for young adults, but that the jinn has a unique role as a helper or as the good power. It therefore has a clear pedagogical role in line with children’s literature and Young Adult literature.

In this thesis, depending on Benedict Anderson’s Studies of nationalism in his book The Imagined Communities, I will prove that in her historical fiction for children, Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands, the Palestinian writer Sonia Nimr is reviving and reforming Arab national identity. Anderson identifies the nation as a group imagined by its members; the people who perceive and identify themselves as equal members in this group. For the people to imagine their nation, Anderson states three tools: the map as a representation of the geographical space, the census as a representation of population identity categories that live in a particular land, and the museum as the representation of historical and the legal continuity of certain ethnicities in a certain geographical space. The three tools are thoroughly abstracted and used in Nimr’s book as we follow the footsteps of Nimr’s heroine in her travels, we see her drawing Arab historical map, when Palestine was a canton in the great Arab State. The social fabric Nimr weaves by the characters in her book reflects the real and the reformed census of Arab ethnicities and their social classes with the highlighting of the essential role of Arabic women in society. The narrated society of Nimr’s work reforms nation’s census which accords with the extended pan Arab geography of Arab nation. The nation imagining requirements are completed by visiting the history and wandering in the historical Arabic cantons and cities which materialize Nimr’s trail to perpetuate those important places in her textual museum, which she builds in her addressed work to children to answer their question about who we are and how we are the most eligible ethnicities to live on this land. Nimr does not promote a certain political agenda nor casts a holy cover on the past; by contrast, she teaches Arab children past lessons to revive and reform their modern Arab national identity as a remedy for the catastrophic national present.