• Shashank Kumar Bharti
• Dr. Bindunath Jha

This article examines the issues of narrative failure, allegory, and silence in Intizar Husain's short tales An Unwritten Epic, Leaves, and City of Sorrow, focusing on how these works address the historical trauma of India's Partition. Rather than showing blatant representations of violence and displacement, Husain creates fractured, elliptical narratives that reflect the difficulties of properly describing civilizational breakdown. Drawing on trauma theory and allegorical reading, the study contends that Husain's stories serve as reflections on language's failure and the limits of narrative in the aftermath of historical disaster. In "An Unwritten Epic," the act of storytelling itself breaks down, symbolizing the loss of cultural continuity. "Leaves" uses natural images to depict a peaceful, widespread disintegration, but "City of Sorrow" creates an allegorical environment plagued by memory and loss. Husain employs these tactics to present a distinct literary perspective on Partition, one that prioritizes silence, suggestion, and myth above realism. This research suggests that Husain's storytelling tactics allow for a more in-depth, thoughtful engagement with communal trauma, where significance is often found not in what is stated but in what is left unsaid.

Postcolonial Memory, Partition Literature, Narrative Silence, Allegory and Trauma

"Narrating the Void: Storytelling and Its Limits in Intizar Husain's An Unwritten Epic, Leaves, and City of Sorrow", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 5, page no.i366-i370, May-2025, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2505940.pdf

"Narrating the Void: Storytelling and Its Limits in Intizar Husain's An Unwritten Epic, Leaves, and City of Sorrow", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.12, Issue 5, page no. ppi366-i370, May-2025, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2505940.pdf