Decolonial Reading of "The Swallows of Kabul" by Yasmina Khadra

This study examines the novel The Swallows of Kabul by questioning how subaltern subjects are conditioned by the groups and regimes of jihadist activism depicted in the novel, and how the literary text reflects silence and subaltern subjects as processes with the potential for epistemic disobedience. Employing a methodological approach rooted in close reading and textual analysis, this study systematically analyzes selected episodes and character interactions to reveal how subalternity, silence, and epistemic disobedience are constructed and performed narratively. The analytical framework draws on decolonial theory and postcolonial literary criticism, with particular focus on subalternity and decolonial epistemology, to interrogate the mechanisms through which cultural, religious, and social systems address or suppress disobedience. The principal contribution of this study is its reconceptualization of silence as an active narrative mechanism within the novel, demonstrating how it enables an epistemological shift from erasure to agency for subaltern subjects. Thus, the research advances existing literary scholarship by integrating a decolonial option into the reading of subalternity, highlighting the nuances of narrative silence and self-determination in the face of control. By examining the subaltern subject through these intersecting theoretical lenses, the study elucidates both the socio-cultural and literary significance of epistemic disobedience in The Swallows of Kabul.