Attia Hosain published her novel ‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’ in 1961 with Chatto and Windus in England. We have digitised the introduction and the first two chapters of the book. ‘Sunlight on a Broken Column’ is considered by some critics to be partly semi-autobiographical. Hosain traces the life of Laila, who grows up in a traditional Muslim taluqdari (feudal) household in old Lucknow. Laila has to confront the changes that are occurring within her own home, Ashiana, and in the world at large. The novel is divided into three parts and explores themes of family, rebellion and social and political change as India is on the verge of Partition. As Lakshmi Holmström states in her essay “Attia Hosain: her life and work”, which was published in the ‘Indian Review of Books’, “A broad theme of the changing Muslim world of the1930s and 40s in India emerges in the novel. It portrays on the one hand, an aspect of social change within the family, its modernization, ‘westernization’, and the cautious and limited liberation of its women. At the same time there is a larger historical theme of the political choices that a family such as hers faced.”

Read the first two chapters