A review by mahimabh
Sunlight On A Broken Column by Attia Hosain

5.0

Set against the backdrop of the independence struggle in India and the subsequent Partition, Sunlight on a Broken Column is a book that deals in the nuanced subtleties of politics and that raises many questions about the various causes that people commit themselves to. Its protagonist, Laila, in her quest for selfhood and identity, stands in for countless young Muslim women caught in the snare of tradition. Hosain lays bare the reality of oppression and marginalisation of different kinds, her story never oversimplifying any of it, however, but painting a picture of a culture, of a way of life that can only be grasped in the full, when explored from every angle. And that’s exactly what she does with it, the exploration enfolded in a narrative that’s melancholically beautiful, the sadness that it stirs up rising on each page like a haunting presence. It is a tale of resistance and rebellion, and of love and the concerns of the human heart. But the book is as much its story as it is the imagery that it evokes. Hosain's prose, as the novel's title would suggest, constantly plays with light and shadow, creating countless images that are both poetic and cinematic in nature. Her descriptions of the world that her characters inhabit are so rich and sensuous that the world rises, life-like, in the mind of the reader. And once the book is finished, it stays there, playing like footage from an old Hindi film.