Afghan Women Authors' Discourses of Resistance

Abstract

The chapter examines the works of Afghanistan's female authors' writings to understand the discursive identity construction concerning the appropriation of relational (i.e., symbolic) space. To pursue this goal, the chapter focuses on four novels by female writers: Nadia Hashimi's Sparks like Stars (2021), Homeira Qaderi's Dancing in the Mosque (2020), Fawzia Koofi's The Favored Daughter (2012), and Atia Abawi's The Secret Sky (2014). Drawing upon Michel Foucault's techniques of discourse analysis, the chapter seeks to delineate the dominant and the contested discourses on how resistance is enumerated and change is initiated by the female characters in the novel. It is argued that throughout the narratives, the relational space functions as an active participant in the construction of women's identities as well as in the exercise of power and the acceptance of truth and knowledge in the society.