Associating with the Ruptured Recollections in Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows

Burnt Shadows (2009) displays the experiences of the women who are brave, dynamic and ready to face the challenges of life, striding intentionally across Japan, India, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan and America and associating with some of the major events of world history; from the time of the Second World War and bombing on Nagasaki, through the 1947 partition of British India, to the new Pakistan and later to Afghanistan, and to the present time of the war on terror and the 9/11 terrorist attack. Such a trajectory coincides with a woman’s experiences in her journey from youth to old age, touching family loyalties, national allegiances, and betrayals. The paper shows the way Shamsie succeeds in focusing on the impact of shared histories, and weaving the interrelated worlds of the Burtons, the Ashrafs, and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York and then to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11, leaving their shadows on the sands of time. If Hiroko survives the atomic blast, the image of some cranes from a kimono she was wearing during the time of the explosion was forever burnt on to her back, and the scars become a personal symbol of the painful event and also a larger metaphor for the traumatic displacement it has caused in the lives of millions of victims over the decades.