diff --git a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-common.nix b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-common.nix
index d62741d590e..2f142d29a38 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-common.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-common.nix
@@ -1583,6 +1583,10 @@ self: super: {
     addBuildDepend (unmarkBroken super.hercules-ci-cli) super.hercules-ci-optparse-applicative
   );
 
+  # Readline uses Distribution.Simple from Cabal 2, in a way that is not
+  # compatible with Cabal 3. No upstream repository found so far
+  readline =  appendPatch super.readline ./patches/readline-fix-for-cabal-3.patch;
+
   # 2020-12-05: http-client is fixed on too old version
   essence-of-live-coding-warp = doJailbreak (super.essence-of-live-coding-warp.override {
     http-client = self.http-client_0_7_8;
diff --git a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-hackage2nix/broken.yaml b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-hackage2nix/broken.yaml
index ad6dd7115ae..5c7568416b7 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-hackage2nix/broken.yaml
+++ b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/configuration-hackage2nix/broken.yaml
@@ -3772,7 +3772,6 @@ broken-packages:
   - read-bounded
   - read-ctags
   - read-io
-  - readline
   - readme-lhs
   - readshp
   - really-simple-xml-parser
diff --git a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix
index 198ce1cc4a5..ba4e363423e 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix
@@ -216709,8 +216709,6 @@ self: {
        librarySystemDepends = [ ncurses readline ];
        description = "An interface to the GNU readline library";
        license = "GPL";
-       hydraPlatforms = lib.platforms.none;
-       broken = true;
      }) {inherit (pkgs) ncurses; inherit (pkgs) readline;};
 
   "readline-statevar" = callPackage
diff --git a/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/patches/readline-fix-for-cabal-3.patch b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/patches/readline-fix-for-cabal-3.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..95853b32a14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/patches/readline-fix-for-cabal-3.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+--- a/Setup.hs	2021-02-04 14:01:09.557970245 +0100
++++ b/Setup.hs	2021-02-04 14:07:45.047443753 +0100
+@@ -3,4 +3,4 @@
+ import           Distribution.Simple
+ 
+ main :: IO ()
+-main = defaultMainWithHooks defaultUserHooks
++main = defaultMainWithHooks autoconfUserHooks