Lucknow, India

The majority of Sunlight on a Broken Column is set in Lucknow, India during the 1930s. Before the political revolution, the feudal system was upheld by British colonial rule and society was dictated by a strict class system. Laila’s coming of age is inflected with discussions of the country’s political turmoil, freedom, and sovereignty. The larger political movement within India, to upend colonial rule and create an equitable social system, serves to highlight the narrator’s struggle to seize autonomy and freedom of action and thought within her family’s traditional concepts of gender roles, as she comes of age.

Ashiana

Ashaina is Laila’s family’s ancestral home where she lives as an adolescent. Before her grandfather’s death, the house is dictated by the patriarch’s strict religious dogma and Laila and the other female family members observe purdah. Later on, when Uncle...