Female emancipation and male oppression in Afghanistan. Fact and fiction in Nadia Hashimi's "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell" (2014)

Essay from the year 2023 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: The manifold reflections of loss of home or migration are complex in the displacement histories and narratives because they contain difficult, untraceable journeys and experiences of immigrants and refugees involved. At present, this also concerns the largest religious community linked to massive migration movements worldwide - Muslims. Most Muslim immigrants coming to Europe, Canada or the United States carry their national, cultural, religious and above all their personal past which taken together create an ideal basis for narrating their stories. Things are worse in their own way when people at present cannot leave Afghanistan after the Taliban came back into power in 2021. Most Afghan people trying to escape from their mother country carry classical colonial or postcolonial topics such as matters of loss, expulsion, displacement, border crossing, exile, diaspora and home. These are - as in the case with female characters - often linked to intolerance, gender injustice or the inferior role of women in the Muslim world, which at present can be seen in the ongoing protests against the Mullah regime in Iran as well. Nadia Hashimi's novel "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell" (2014) is set against a different background, reflecting the necessity to stay in Afghanistan against a Sharia background. The narration centers around (among other women) two female characters named Shekiba and Rahima. Both are family members of different time periods whose female role and struggle is set against Afghanistan's historic, cultural and religious background. The novel in parts can be seen as a literay addition to Khaled Hossein's "The Kite Runner" (2003) or Nadeem Aslam's "The Wasted Vigil" (2008) since both novelists also place their characters into an Afghan background.