Transnational Feminist Writing: Deconstructing Masculine Domination in Hatab Sarajevo by Said Khatibi An Intersectional Feminist Reading

Abstract

This research paper seeks to deconstruct the mechanisms of masculine domination and the discourse of violence in the context of civil wars, taking the novel Hatab Sarajevo (Firewood of Sarajevo) by the Algerian writer Said Khatibi as a model for critical inquiry. The study proceeds from the hypothesis that the violence inflicted upon women during wartime is not incidental, but rather a systematic strategy for the "rape of the nation" through the female body. The paper discusses how the encounter between the Algerian character Selim and the Bosnian character Ivana in a "Third Space" (following Homi Bhabha's approach) creates an opportunity for the formation of a hybrid identity that transcends closed nationalisms. The study also fundamentally focuses on the act of writing (metanarrative) as a feminist strategy of resistance, through which the character transforms from an object of trauma and physical violation into a narrating subject that reclaims the authority of storytelling, thereby deconstructing the official narrative of history.