Rethinking Masculinity in Saudi Literature: A Critical Analysis of Fatimah Abdulhamid's Alūfug Alāla (The Highest Horizon, 2022).

Despite a growing body of literature on feminism, scholarlyresearch on masculinity in Saudi literature is very limited. The portrayal of men‘sexperience in literary production is still underrepresented. This highlights a gap inthe existing literature, which this study aims to address by examining AlūfugAlāla (The Highest Horizon, 2022) by Fatima Abdulhamid, depicting the life ofSulaiman, a 13-year-old boy married off to a 24-year-old woman. Abdulhamid‘snovel presents Sulaiman‘s incomplete journey from childhood to manhood,shaped by multifaceted challenges arising from societal expectations andtraditional gender norms. Through the lens of masculine studies, the paperunderlines the critique of hegemonic masculinity in the novel and highlights howgender expectations significantly influence an individual‘s life. The paper alsoexamines how the novel can make a valuable contribution to the field ofmasculine studies by providing a unique perspective on the construction ofmasculinity within Saudi social context.