Mostar in Jasmina Musabegović's Novels

Abstract

This paper presents the thematologic interpretation of three novels written by Jasmina Musabegović, Skretnice, Most, and Žene, glasovi, highlighting Mostar as the author's continuous motif. The theoretical starting points are the acquisitions of the post-structural spatial turn, constructivism, women's writing, cultural memory, semiotics of space, ‘hybrid phenomenology’, and stylistics. Such an inclusivist inter-method approach dispelled formalist prejudices according to thematology, providing arguments for the representation of Mostar within the Foucaultian category of heterotopia. The interpretation of a spatial phenomenon, being Mostar in Jasmina Musabegović's novels, guided this multigenerational family trilogy in a three-stage projection encompassing the periods of human life: childhood – maturity – the third age.