Fiza Pathan’s novel Amina: The Silent One is the story of Amina, born into the grim poverty of an Indian slum. As a girl she is considered “a burden.” Nevertheless, her parents Jaffar and Rahat want all their daughters educated. Amina is a silent, contemplative child, and her parents encourage her extraordinary talent for music. When Rahat and her other daughters are killed in suicide bombings, Amina’s grandmother, Khadijah, insists that the girl is eventually married off. Poor Amina becomes imprisoned as a sex-slave in the house of husband Iqbal and his cruel mother who run a prostitution business. She suffers incomprehensible abuse until Iqbal hears her play the flute. Seizing her chance to escape, one day she flees to the one person and place she knows will offer safety, and from there she begins her journey of healing, and her training and emergence as an accomplished musician.

Pathan’s writing is exceptional, and this book is a revelation into what life is like in the Indian slums and more, particularly the inhumane ways in which girls and women are viewed and treated by many in Indian society. The author holds nothing back in her harrowing descriptions of appalling abuse. The result is an eye-opening, gripping and heart-breaking story. Pathan has a captivating writing style. The characters she creates are totally real to the reader, and the world in which they live becomes very vivid too. I love the quote by Maria Augusta von Trapp at the start of the book: “Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens,” which speaks of the healing properties of music. Amina’s music not only softens the hearts of her abusers, to some extent, but also propels her forward and prevents her soul from being completely broken. Amina: The Silent One is a powerful story with a message that needs to be told, one that will stay in your mind. It deserves an award.

In Amina: The Silent One by Fiza Pathan, Amina is known in her family as the silent one. She seldom speaks. With two older sisters, a mother and a grandmother all talking non-stop, it's understandable that the third daughter would be the quiet one. Amina does communicate, however, in a language that is more powerful than the spoken word. Amina communicates through her music. She is, surprisingly, a musical prodigy and her flute, her instrument of choice because it is the only one her father could afford to give her, transports herself and all who listen to a world of wonder.

In the poor ghetto where life is a daily struggle for mere survival, Amina provides a source of beauty for all who can hear her music. And, for Amina, music becomes not only her solace, but also her saving grace. When her mother and sisters are killed tragically in a terrorist bomb, Amina buries herself in her music. As a young woman, forced into an arranged marriage, Amina must endure the unthinkable and it is only with her music that she can truly escape. And, through her music she can forgive, but never forget.
Music is, after all, the most powerful means of communication and, although Amina is the silent one, she finds a deeper beauty that speaks through her silence and touches the heart and soul of all around her.

Amina's story is just one story in the sad plight of women in India. Parts of her story are as shocking as they are tragic. Author Fiza Pathan presents the reader with greater insight into the sad fate of India's women and reveals a revoltingly unfair world that many of us can never fully understand. This story is a very powerful and insightfully troubling one that addresses the plight of women in India.