Laila

Laila is the first-person narrator of Sunlight on a Broken Column. At the outset of the novel, she is living with Baba Jan and her aunts, who observe purdah. Her grandfather’s imminent death weighs on the family’s dynamic and she and her cousin Zahra fear for their futures after the passing of the family patriarch. Unlike Zahra, Laila was allowed to pursue an education. While she enjoys reading and exploring western philosophies, the ideologies she learns in school abrade her family’s traditions and she is uncertain how to reconcile the two. After Baba Jan’s passing, “it was as if tight hands had been loosened which had tied together those who had lived under the power of his will and authority:” (112). The narrator begins living with Uncle Hamid and Aunt Saira, who have a more liberal approach to Islam and the feudal system. She has...