Published Paper Details:

This paper examines Nadia Hashimi's When the Moon Is Low as a literary representation of Afghan motherhood under patriarchy, Taliban rule, and forced migration. Focusing on Fereiba Waziri, the study argues that the novel reconfigures motherhood as a site of constrained but meaningful agency rather than passive suffering. Through close textual analysis and a feminist-postcolonial reading, the paper investigates how Fereiba's pursuit of education, her clandestine teaching, her role in protecting her children, and her morally complex decisions during migration challenge reductive images of Afghan and Muslim women as silent victims. The paper further contends that Hashimi represents motherhood as both an affective and political practice shaped by war, displacement, and gendered violence. By foregrounding maternal agency, the novel offers a nuanced critique of domestic patriarchy and transnational refugee precarity while highlighting the ethical burdens carried by women in conditions of structural vulnerability.