Research Scholar & Teacher (IISJ)
Online published on 26 March, 2021.
Attia Hussian's famous novel ‘Sunlight on a broken column’ (1960) deals with a young woman's personnel crisis set against the larger historical background of the independence movement in India. It is the sheer story of Laila and her struggle against the orthodox traditional patriarchal system. The novelist has woven a story out of her own experiences. There is a parallel between the events of the novel and the life of the Hussain in Ashaina against the backdrop of India's freedom movement. Attia Hussain's novel, Sunlight on a broken column(1961) and her earlier collection of short stories, Phoenix fled (1953), gave evidence of a talent for reminiscence and sensitive observation that doesn't seem to have been exploited since to the full. In the story, the old woman suddenly evokes the terror of the partition.
