Book

Analysis
SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE - GROUP 4
 Outline
The following presentation will focus
on the following components:

1 2 3 4 5
Introduction Plot Characters Historical Themes
of Novel & Summary Context/Cross
Author Cultural link
“In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling,
naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to
Guantánamo Bay. How did it come to this? he
wonders…”

~Prologue of the Burnt Shadow

1
Introduction: Burnt Shadows
Burnt Shadows is a novel by Pakistani-British
novelist Kamila Shamsie
The novel was published in 2009
The story follows the experiences of two
families
Both families experience tragedy and love
amid war, partition and terrorism
The novel shows how the passionate pursuits
of both families bring them together
Introduction: Burnt Shadows
Burnt Shadows is Kamila Shamsie’s fifth novel
The novel was translated into more than twenty
languages
Burnt novel won the 2010 Anisfield-Wolf Book
Award for fiction.
It was also nominated for the following awards;
1. The 2009 Orange Prize for fiction
2. The 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award
3. The Morning News Tournament of Books
Author’s
Introduction:
Kamila Shamsie
Introduction: Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi
Shamsie belongs to a popular literary family
Her mother Muneeza Shamsie is a writer, critic,
and literary journalist
She is also the niece of celebrated Indian
novelist Attia Hosain
She was influenced by the Kashmiri poet Agha
Shahid Ali
Shamsie is also a reviewer and columnist who
writes for the leading publications
Introduction: Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie’s novels touch on different themes
She writes about love, loss, politics, feminism, hope,
and trauma
Her novels portray a picture of the vibrant and lively
city of Karachi
Her first four novels are set in her home city Karachi
Burnt Shadows (2009) spans several continents but it
is also partly based in Karachi
Her books have been translated into a number of
languages
Burnt Shadows:
Writing Style
Introduction: Writing Style
Burnt Shadows is written using a third-person
narrator
The narrator frequently switches focus between
many of the main characters in the novel
Kamila Shamsie builds a detailed picture of the
emotional impact of the events on the characters'
lives
The novel is rich in literary elements from both
Pakistani and British cultures
Introduction: Writing Style
The novel is set in different times and places
The plot spans the course of the 2nd half of the 20th
century
Shamsie explores characters living through different
events such as;
World War II and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in
1945
The partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in
1947
The 9/11 attack in New York in 2001 and the
Afghanistan war
Kamila Shamsie’s
Other Works
Kamila Shamsie’s Other Works
Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven award-winning
novels
She wrote her first novel In The City By The Sea in 1998
The novel was shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys
Award
She was also awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for
Literature in Pakistan in 1999
Her second novel Salt and Saffron was published in
2000
The novel led to her selection as one of Orange’s “21
Writers of the 21st Century”
Kamila Shamsie’s Other Works
Shamsie’s third novel Kartography was shortlisted
for the John Llewelyn Rhys Award in the UK
Kartography and her fourth novel Broken Verses
won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy
of Letters in Pakistan
Her sixth novel A God in Every Stone was
published in 2014
The novel was shortlisted for the Bailey's Women's
Prize for Fiction
Kamila Shamsie’s Other Works
Her sixth novel A God in Every Stone published in 2014
The novel was shortlisted for the Bailey's Women's
Prize for Fiction
Shamsie’s seventh novel Home Fire was published in
2017
The novel won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2018
The novel was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in
2017
She is also the author of novels Duckling (published in
2020) and Best of Friends (published in 2022)
Plot Summary

2
 Characters
Konrad Vas Hirroko Tanaka
A German from Berlin Japanese girl
In Japan to capture property Teacher & Translator
Also to write a book titled 'Kosmo Sufferer of Nagasaki attack
Politician' Cranes tattoo on her back
Hired Hiroko as translator Father declared traitor, mother
Fell in love with Hiroko, died
proposed to her PTSD disease
Died in a blast
 Characters
Sajjad Ali Ashraf
A Turk Muslim in Delhi, a
servant of the Burton family
Taught Hiroko Urdu
Both fell in love and married in
Istanbul
Post partition settled in Pakistan
Ran a soap factory
Killed by a man on suspicion
Raza Konrad Ashraf
Sajjad and Hiroko's son
16 year old
Anxiety attacks during law test
Arrested by New York Police as
under suspicion
Prolugue: chained man
 Characters
Ilse
Konrad's step sister in Delhi
Changed her name to Elizabeth
Burton
Hiroko went to meet her after
Konrad's death
James Burton
English man, husband of Ilse
Unhappy to see Hiroko
Harry Burton
James and Ilse's son
English man
Private contractor for CIA
Abdullah
Raza's friend in the fish market
Took Raza to the Mujahideen's
Military training
Learned how to fight the Soviets
Leter went to New York and worked
as a cab driver
Setting:
Part 1: Nagasaki, Japan 1945
Part 2: Delhi, India 1947
Part 3:Karachi, Pakistan 1982
Part 4: New York, USA. 2001
Character Analysis

3
 CHARACTERS
Major Characters Minor Characters
Round & dynamic characters Static characters

HIROKO TANAKA SAJJAD ASHRAF

(PROTAGNIST) ELIZABETH BURTON
RAZA KONRAD ASHRAF JAMES BURTON
HARRY BURTON KONRAD WEISS
KIM BURTON
 Protagonist of the novel

HIROKO TANAKA
Japanese woman
Hibakusha - an explosion affected person
Depicted as a very strong-willed woman who
never gives up despite all the losses she had to
face
She struggles to define herself outside of her
traumatic experiences at Nagasaki
She does not identify with any one country
She judges other people on their character
rather than their stereotype
She is excellent at learning languages and is
fluent in Japanese, English, German, and Urdu
Nagasaki Delhi:
bombing: 1947
1945

Pakistan: New
1982-83 York:
2001-02

HIROKO TANAKA
 Multilingual like his mother

Raza Konrad Ashraf

Adopts the profession of 'Polyglot'
His Japanese and Indian ancestry enables
him to pass as a Hazara Afghani.
Raza is treated like he is an outsider in
Karachi because he is mixed-race (his mother
is Japanese). Identity Crisis is a major factor
Raza faces in his life as a Pakistani.
He faces discrimination based on his facial
features.
Victim,
He exhibits selfless friendship when he helps
his Afghan friend Abdulllah in escaping.
Father-Son Conflicts
HARRY BURTON English child who spent his infancy in India
Moved to boarding school in England -
mourns for lost Indian Childhood
Feels at home in New York - reinvents
himself as Harry (formerly Henry)
Starts working for the CIA and later for a
private security company in Afghanistan
Killed by Taliban
The Intersection of Politics and Fiction in
Kamila Shamsie's 'Burnt Shadows

4
THE HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI ATOMIC
BOMBINGS: 1945
The novel opens up with one of the most
harrowing incidents in history.
Over 126000 casualties
The mental disturbance of the survivors
and Hiroko is unimaginable.
Shamsie writes about the agony of her
protagonist.
The ‘evaporation’ of her first love Konrad
fills the heart with horror and chills.
With the burning smell of shelter,
bread, and loved ones she journeys in
search of peace and love.
THE INDIA-PAKISTAN PARTITION, 1947
This event marked a significant turning point
in South Asian history,
Thousands of deaths and rapes.
The worst impact was on forced migrants who
had to leave their homelands
When Hiroko and Sajjad want to return to
Delhi after the partition, they are prevented
from doing so :
"They said I chose to leave.” He said the words
slowly,… They said I’m one of the Muslims who
chose to leave India They said I can’t go back to Page 06 of 15

Dilli. I can’t go back home."

THE SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR, 1979-1989
This war saw the death of about two million
Afghans at the hands of the Russian imperial
forces.
The Afghan war, led by rural Mujahideen,
lured young boys under the guise of liberation.
Shamsie addresses this topic when Raza,
Hiroko and Sajjad’s son, unintentionally aids
Abdullah in reaching Mujahideen training
camps.
The war's impact is evident as the 'paranoid'
Mujahid kills Sajjad for simply inquiring about
his missing son
 THE 9/11 ATTACK AND
ITS AFTERMATH
On September 11, 2001, the World Trade
Center in Manhattan was hit by two
hijacked planes.
Americans openly discriminating
against Muslims in the country
Post 9/11 tactics of the United States,
which was hunting with the target on
the backs of whoever they found, Just as
Raza being picked instead of the man
Kim, Harry’s daughter, identifies.
Establishment of Guantanamo Bay in Presentation Design

2002.
The novel spans a period of 60 years in Five countries, witnessing
wars and Massive bloodshed
Likewise, we witness how the lives of the common citizenry were
devastated in wars that they had no role to play, except for the
heavy taxes imposed on them by their respective governments,
followed by years of recession, poverty, and hunger.
Who wins the battle? Who was actually fighting? Shamsie Hints at
these questions to the readers through out her novel.
Themes

5
 Theme of Post-colonialism
Complexities of colonial impact and the struggle for identity, agency, and
cultural autonomy
"Other" means viewing non-Western cultures and colonized lands as
different because of Eurocentric ideas, often using simple stereotypes.
(Swati, 2020)
"Sajjad, a puppet in the hand of James, represents India and James
English.”

"Mimicry" refers to colonial discourse which encourages the colonized

subject to ‘mimic’ the colonizer. (Mambrol, 2016)
“Puts off English clothes and puts on kurta Pyjama." -Sajjad
 Theme of Post-colonialism
"Hybridity" Colonial impact results in dividing and fragmenting the
colonized identity, culture, and ideology. (Sokar, 2021)
“Knotted between two cultures.” (Sajjad)
"were bound up in his mother's gift of languages to him." (Raza)

"Nativism" is when colonized people try to bring back and defend their
own culture against the culture brought by the colonizers. (Masood, 2019)
"Sometimes she [Hiroko] felt like a creature who had lost its way
between two worlds – one in which she could wear a silk kimono,
the other in which she must wear cotton saris; one in which she
spoke a language her father would not understand, the other in
which she spoke a language her father could not understand."
 Cosmopolitanism
Surpassing national boundaries, fostering connections and challenging the
divisive “logic of the nation.”
“Elizabeth loved Hiroko, Hiroko loved Elizabeth, and there was the
uncomplicatedness of the first half of the twentieth century about it."
- Shamsie.
Hiroko recognizes Abdullah’s character as,
“He was not a bad person."
 Cosmopolitanism
Logic of the Nation vs The logic of the Individual
"Too many people think I'm making a particular comment on America, but
really I'm talking about nations in wartime and the particular inhuman logic
they start to follow when they decide what is an acceptable price for some other
nation's people to pay. . . At the level of individual human interaction, of course,
there's a different logic afoot. Where love and friendship are possible—and they
are possible in the most unlikely places and combinations—then you have the
opposite of an attitude of separateness which says, 'I'll accept your suffering
because it's in my own self-interest.” - Shamsie
 WAR AND DISPLACEMENT
"The question he was pondering on at the loss of his wits... wearing an orange
jumpsuit... dressed.”

“She touched her back, just above the waist. It’s always there.”

"It was hardly a time to consider a future career; everything was turmoil, every
day brought news of further atrocities, and relationships that had seemed to be
cast in steel disintegrated under the acid question: Are you for India or
Pakistan?"
 WAR AND DISPLACEMENT
“What prompted this falling-off of love? How to explain to the earth that it was
more functional as a vegetable patch than a flower garden, just as factories
were more functional than schools and boys were more functional as weapons
than as humans.”
 THEME OF IDENTITY CRISIS
“Hibakusha” is the term used for war survivors in Japan.

"Why can't you be more Pakistani?” -Raza

“It seems to me that I could find more in your world which resembles Japanese
traditions than I can in this world of the English.” – Hiroko

“It didn’t bother her in the least to know she would always be a foreigner in
Pakistan.”

“Raza, my brother truly now you are an Afghan.” – Abdullah

Symbols

5
 BIRD
The symbol of birds represents Konrad's risky journals hidden as hanging
mobiles, portraying the loss of his academic freedom in pre-war Japan.

Hiroko's scars shaped like birds signify the losses she endured due to the atomic
bomb, representing her deceased loved ones and homeland, contrasting with
Sajjad's conflicting interpretation.

"And so, the night Germany surrendered, Konrad constructed a mobile

of strong wire and hung each of his eight purple-leather notebooks from
it. . . The wind twirled the purplewinged birds in the moonlight."
 FLOWERPOTS

"There was Delhi: city of the Raj, where every Englishman's bungalow
had lush gardens, lined with red flowerpots. Flowerpots: it summed it
all up. No trees growing in courtyards for the English, no rooms
clustered around those courtyards; instead, separations and
demarcations."
 SAJJAD’S CLOTHING
"James turned. Walking through the mist towards him was Sajjad,
dressed as he had been the first time James saw him, and never since, in
white-muslin kurta pyjama."

"I have uncles and cousins who work for the English. It's what we do
during the day. It's employment. And then we come home, and take off
our shirts and trousers, replace them with kurta pyjama and become
men of our moholla again. That's our true world.“ - Sajjad
 References
Ansari, Z. (n.d.). Burnt Shadow by Kamila Shamsie. Academia, 14. Burnt
Shadows. (n.d.). Retrieved from Grade Saver. Mambrol, N. (2016, April
10).
Mimicry in Postcolonial Theory. Retrieved from Literariness:
https://literariness.org/
Masood, R. (2019, November 15). Native, Nativism. Postcolonial Space.
Sokar, M. (2021). Hybridity and Loss of Identity in Inheritance of Loss. A
Postcolonial Reading. GRIN Verlag.
Swati, D. (2020). What is postcolonialism? An Overview. Sociology Group
Thank You!