Burnt Shadows

Burnt Shadows explores the ways in which individual lives are affected by geopolitical forces, especially of war and violence. The nuclear bombardment of Nagasaki, the departure of the British from India and the resulting Partition, the Cold War, and the 9/11 attacks and resulting bombardment of Afghanistan all shape the lives and choices of Shamsie’s characters—even the characters outside of the novel’s two main families. Shamsie presents geopolitics as inescapable on the personal scale: Sajjad attempts to eschew the violent politics of Partition, but the political forces at play still reconfigure every aspect of his life when he loses his Indian citizenship; Hiroko is indelibly marked by the bombing of Nagasaki, both physically and psychologically, and endures as tragedy, espionage, and politics rob her of her home, her father, her lover, her husband, and finally her son. Raza’s relationship to his community is even shaped by political forces from before he was born, as Hiroko’s history unfairly complicates his ability to be accepted in the only home he’s ever known. Even in the earliest pages of the novel, the anxieties of war frustrate Konrad Weiss’s personal relationships with Hiroko and Yoshi.

In contrast to the Tanaka-Ashrafs, who primarily represent the personal consequences of political movements, Shamsie also uses the Weiss-Burtons to recreate geopolitical attitudes in individuals. James Burton is all the classism and racism of the British Empire distilled into one man; Kim Burton models the post-9/11 anger and paranoia that fueled large-scale nationalism and facilitated the War on Terror. With the Weiss-Burtons, Shamsie posits a two-way relationship between the political and the personal: Individual biases shape the policies of nations, which in turn influence individual biases. In the Tanaka-Ashrafs, Shamsie explores how innocent people may be caught in the cross-hairs of prejudice and power seeking.

Shamsie often explores the relationship between the political and the personal via the justifications both people and nations make for their actions. Guilt and responsibility, Shamsie posits, are difficult to place when people’s behavior is driven by a combination of learned and innate behaviors. Through Raza and Harry, Shamsie considers the difference between intent and impact as well as the degree of control an individual has over their actions when compromised by service to a national government. Harry is quick to justify his violent history in the name of democracy yet worries that his daughter will think less of him if she knows the truth about his past. Raza, who is unable to face Hiroko because of his guilt over Abdullah and Sajjad, concludes that his passive role in the violent dealings of A&G does not absolve him of the consequences his translation work facilitates.

Through it all, Shamsie insists on centering the lived experiences of those who are most affected by the decisions of world leaders yet often forgotten by history: the civilians. Shamsie reminds her reader that politics and warfare do not exist in a vacuum but transform the conditions of everyday life even for individuals who will never participate in the decisions that create that transformation. Shamsie attempts to humanize historical events, returning them to the context of individual suffering from the emotional remove of abstract foreign policy and political maneuvering. 

Shamsie explores the limitations and possibilities of cross-cultural intimacy in complement to her portrayal of cosmopolitanism as a global ideal. She presents cross-cultural intimacy as legitimately difficult to attain, even in the presence of the best intentions. Sajjad and Hiroko’s creation of a Pakistani-Japanese Muslim family is achieved through a “series of negotiations” (134), and their relationship almost never happens at all due to the prescriptions of Sajjad’s Muslim family and the class prejudice of the English-German Burtons. By portraying even the novel’s most successful example of cross-cultural intimacy as hard won, Shamsie acknowledges the legitimate difficulties of connecting across differences even as she argues in favor of cosmopolitanism. 

As the political dynamics of the novel grow more complex, Shamsie also allows the dynamics of cross-cultural intimacy to be complicated by shifting generational attitudes in relation to increasing globalism. Hiroko celebrates the diversity of New York City, but even as the traffic of both people and ideas across borders increases, it does not necessarily result in a more tolerant or compassionate global attitude. For example, Harry notes how profits, not friendship, motivate international dealings. Personally, Harry is not hindered by the overt racism of his father, yet his ability to think beyond his American perspective is still limited by the necessary secrecy of his job, which inhibits total intimacy. The diversity of New York, and specifically the presence of many ethnicities of Muslim peoples, is perverted by racial profiling in the wake of 9/11.

Shamsie indicates translation to be both a primary obstacle and a superb facilitator of cross-cultural intimacy, as shared secrets and shared languages are often paired in the story. Ilse and Hiroko’s friendship develops in German, providing simultaneous privacy and connection. Raza’s fluency in Pashto creates the possibility of his friendship with Abdullah. Sajjad and Hiroko fall in love in Urdu, and Harry’s sharing of Urdu with Kim facilitates her understanding of Raza at the end of the novel. However, Raza’s multi-fluency also facilitates the morally dubious actions of A&G. Sajjad’s hypothetical English masterpiece written in Urdu is considered preposterous by James, who believes translation should only move in one direction, and Kim and Abdullah, despite both speaking English, are still unable to understand one another.