Kamila Shamsi's Burnt Shadows: A Review

By:

 Ullah, Inam Gul.                                                                                                                      iukhan233@gmail.com

The Burnt Shadows is a brilliantly written prose piece by the noted Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie. The novel depicts the writer’s firm grasp over history, colonial discourses and imperial mindset. It gives a vivid account of the relationship between the British colonizers and the Indian colonized. The novel shows the burns and ills of the first use of atomic weapons in the history of the planet. The novel tells a sad, yet an interesting tale of the days the British Empire was to recede, end of colonization and the partition of the India. The novel is set in different countries, i.e Japan, India, America, Pakistan, Canada and areas lying between the boundaries of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The American’s imperialist war, the connection between CIA and ISI, the recruitment of the civilians to the war, run recurrently in the latter part of the novel.

The novel opens with the horrors and terrific scenes of the atomic explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a sense fear and sense of insecurity of life of limb the war had created there. Immediate after ,the plot leads the readers to the love story between Konard and Hiroko Tanaka. It’s  after once their tryst, Konard succumbs to death when the bomb explodes at a cathedral, the burnt bodies and flesh scatter around, and the burnt bodies reflect their shadows on the walls. The shadow of Konard’s body being the larger one among them.  

Hiroko driven by the sense of loss and grief and in order to escape the worries of war, comes to Dilli (Dehli) to meet Konard’s half sister Ilse and her husband James Burton. Hiroko here falls in love with Sajjad Ashraf, a servant of the James Burton household. Sajjad and Hiroko come closer to each other, he becomes her Urdu tutor and Hiroko confides in him the ills and suffering she had suffered during the war at Japan. She shows her the burns on the parts of her body, which brings them yet more closer. The relationship between Sajjad and the Burton household reflects the colonial mindset and the pride the British would take in their Empire. They would all the times, especially Ilse, treat him as an inferior and a colonized subject.

In the course of the novel the relationship between Hirko and Sajjad Ashraf grows deeper. Both being form different cultures and belief systems, now narrow down their alienation and differences in outlook. Once, when they are roaming, Hirko asks Sajjad how one can become Muslim? Sajjad enunciates the Kalma Tayyiba, Hiroko repeats after him, and she thereby embraces Islam. The relationship later develops into marriage ties between the two.

When the Empire vacates India, Asharf opts for Pakistan, and thus Hiroko and Asharf comes to Karachi and get settled there. The couple is soon blessed with a male baby, Raza. Whereas Ilse, already fed up of her husband along with her son Harry, leaves for America to live with someone she loved dearly.

Raza when joins school, undergoes worst identity crisis. He being a multilingual, and brought up in a multi cultural environment proves a failure, when it comes to his interaction with his mates and peers. He shows very poor performance in his studies, especially when it comes to the subject of theology. The failure leads him to abandon his studies and start working in a factory with his father. The character of Raza, symbolizes the identity crisis, by most account the concept of hybrid Identity as propounded by the postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhaba.

Harry is now a grown up, and has joined the CIA and visits Pakistan to facilitate the American war against Russia in collaboration with the ISI. He comes into contact with Raza Ashraf at Karachi. Raza being a multilingual and having ties with Harry, is mistaken for a Haza boy by Afghan people in Karachi.

Raza joins the Mujahideen and later comes into to contact with Harry who works for CIA. During the course of the events Harry is killed and Raza grows home sick. Raza’s mother seeks help from Harry’’s daughters  and Abdullah  the person who had introduced Raza to the Mujahedeen. However at the time of exchange the security forces arrive on the scene.

The novel gives an account of the atomic explosions in Japan, colonial era of India, Indian partition and the American war against the communist rise in Afghanistan.

Read also:

The Kite Runner, by Khalid Husseni.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Related Posts