Masculinity in Crisis and Pakhtunwali in Zaitoon Bano's English-Translated Works

Abstract

This article examines the representation of masculinity in crisis in the three English-translated stories by Zaitoon Bano—The Gambler (trans. Masror Hausen, 2002), The Luckiest (trans. Nida Shafi, 2006), and The Straw Bridge (trans. Sher Zaman Taizi, 2007) - all published in the Pakistan Academy of Letters through close textual analysis grounded in R. W. Connell's theory of masculinity in crisis and the cultural framework of Pakhtunwali. Following Connell’s (1995) idea that masculinity is a socially formed regime of practices, which have been shaped by power relations and institutional structures, the study explores the ways in which the male characters of Bano, as well as the patriarchal regimes that they inhabit, are made morally unstable, emotionally repressed and socially contradictory. Special interest is given to how the key values of Pakhtunwali, nang (honour), ghairat (courage) and badal (revenge) operate not as the agents of male dominance but as the agents of their own destruction. This set of values, rather than reinforcing male authority, creates internal conflict, social alienation and ultimately the psychological integration of the male ego. The analysis reveals that Bano, as a female author within a profoundly patriarchal literary tradition, employs narrative technique, characterization, and symbolic detail to expose the emotional and ethical costs of hegemonic masculinity in Pakhtun society. Her work constitutes a subversive space, critiquing the dominant norms of male identity and conduct within Pakhtun culture. The study further reasons that English translation extends Bano's critical involvement into a transnational academic field, making locally specific gender formations available to global theoretical discourse. The results are used in the study of masculinity, Pashto literary criticism and translation studies, making the work of Bano an important and understudied piece.