Zeenuth Futehally's Zohra: A gentle rebel

Abstract

In the fictional engagement with social history, Zeenuth Futhehally has worked on retrospective in her debut novel Zohra, a woman centric novel, published by Zubaan in 2012.  The novel is set in chaotic pre-independence India and the writer has attempted to construct the period in a very subtle way trying to penetrate into the inner worlds of characters and the contemporary atmosphere. The writer has not used history as a lump but instinctly she has appropriated revised and re-interpreted history of Hyderabad depicting Muslim life, culture and attitude of the early twentieth century very subtly. The major socio-political movements, national and state upheavals have invariably drawn the attention of the novelist and her essential aim of the novel is representation of the way the society moves