Published in 1961, Sunlight on a Broken Column is a semi-autobiographical work and the only complete novel by Attia Hosain. The novel, set against the backdrop of the Partition of India and the social fragmentation it ushered in, follows the life of Laila – an orphan girl belonging to a Muslim ‘taluqdari’ (feudal landowners) family – through a span of more than two decades. In it, Hosain tries to provide an alternate perspective to the Partition through her unique position as a young woman growing up in a consanguineous and gender-segregated family that finds itself on the wrong side of the Partition not only ideologically but also spatially.
The novel depicts the upheaval that is wrecked in the life of Laila and her family members with the death of her grandfather. As a consequence of this, her supposedly ‘liberal’ Uncle Hamid takes up the mantle of the patriarchal figurehead of the family, throwing their peaceful settled existence into disarray. The bildungsroman follows Laila as she, raised on Western ideals according to the wishes of her late father, tries to negotiate between her traditional family and the rapidly changing values of the society at large as the Independence of the country looms on the horizon until she finally chooses to leave her family behind in order to marry a poor Muslim man named Ameer. Laila’s return to her soon-to-be sold ancestral house in Lucknow after a period of 14 years, as a widowed mother, in the aftermath of the Partition and its violence marks the end of the novel.
