The first Bosnian Muslim woman author Nafija Sarajlić, and the rediscovery of her writing in relation to the canon

Апстракт

The aim of this paper is to analyse the stories by Nafija Sarajlić (1893–1970) in the relation to Bosnian Muslim literary canon, double standards towards women, restrictions, negation, trivialization and inferiority of the female experience. The phenomena described therein are the anxieties of authorship, the literary authority and influence, often overshadowed by the author’s autobiographical relationship with her husband Šemsudin Sarajlić (1887–1960). The focus of the analysis is her decision to stop writing due to family and social reasons. Therefore, from the example of Nafija Sarajlić, the ideal model of the woman-victim, or the Angel in the House, was built into the Muslim [Bosniak] literary canon. This paper will expose the distorted canonical image and feminist neglect of the first noted strategies of resistance to social dominance, as well as provide an explication of the complex position of the woman writer in the public sphere. With this interpretation, keeping in mind the literary injustice done to this author, I represent a cultural reinterpretation of Nafija Sarajlić. This paper offers a gynocritical reading of the works of the first Bosnian Muslim woman prose writer, Nafija Sarajlić, in the context of the historical Muslim Women’s Question and canon. This approach involves the reconstruction of the historical context of Bosnia under the Austro-Hungarians, as well as the particularities of Islamic tradition and culture, thereby highlighting the abandonment of writing.