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A review by lailat
Leila by Prayaag Akbar
3.0
‘Anyone who can afford it hides behind walls. They think they’re doing it for security, for purity, but somewhere inside its shame, shame at their own greed. How they’ve made the rest of us live.‘
Leila by Prayaag Akbar is a dystopian set in India, where citizens have created walled communities, with interaction between the communities prohibited. We follow Shalini, whose daughter, Leila, was taken on her third birthday. On the same night, Shalini’s husband is killed, and Shalini herself is taken to live in a ‘Purity Camp’, separated from the rest of society. The reason behind this violent separation of the family was because Shalini and her husband were from different communities, and decided to raise Leila away from these communities. Sixteen years on, Shalini still has hope that she will find Leila again.
‘It is not something from me but something of me that has been taken. The part that could feel warmth, happiness, desire. Perhaps I have yielded something of myself.‘
The basis behind the novel is clearly based on the social hierarchies of India’s caste system, which still plays a part in Indian society today. I appreciated the exploration around living against societal norms, and the impact this could have on family relations. I also really empathised with the motherhood aspect – of a mother holding on to hope of seeing her child again even once so many years have passed.
This is a quiet and slow dystopian – think Sophie Mackintosh or Kazuo Ishiguro. The beginning was pretty compelling, and my attention was held towards the end, but the middle of the novel dragged for me, and even now, only a few days after reading it, is kind of a blur. Although I thought the premise of the novel was brilliant, and on paper is exactly the kind of dystopian I should love, unfortunately the middle meant it fell slightly flat for me.
Leila by Prayaag Akbar is a dystopian set in India, where citizens have created walled communities, with interaction between the communities prohibited. We follow Shalini, whose daughter, Leila, was taken on her third birthday. On the same night, Shalini’s husband is killed, and Shalini herself is taken to live in a ‘Purity Camp’, separated from the rest of society. The reason behind this violent separation of the family was because Shalini and her husband were from different communities, and decided to raise Leila away from these communities. Sixteen years on, Shalini still has hope that she will find Leila again.
‘It is not something from me but something of me that has been taken. The part that could feel warmth, happiness, desire. Perhaps I have yielded something of myself.‘
The basis behind the novel is clearly based on the social hierarchies of India’s caste system, which still plays a part in Indian society today. I appreciated the exploration around living against societal norms, and the impact this could have on family relations. I also really empathised with the motherhood aspect – of a mother holding on to hope of seeing her child again even once so many years have passed.
This is a quiet and slow dystopian – think Sophie Mackintosh or Kazuo Ishiguro. The beginning was pretty compelling, and my attention was held towards the end, but the middle of the novel dragged for me, and even now, only a few days after reading it, is kind of a blur. Although I thought the premise of the novel was brilliant, and on paper is exactly the kind of dystopian I should love, unfortunately the middle meant it fell slightly flat for me.