It’s Sunday and Monday’s coming way too quickly. But cheer up guys! This is time for my first Book Review – no, I’m not stressing at all – and I’m going to present you a book really dear to me. A book I’ve read some time ago, which I still remember today because it marked me so deeply, and I hope it will be the same for you.
“Burnt Shadow” – Kamila Shamsie
On August 9, 1945, Hiroko Tanaka steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across her back. Nagasaki’s sky is blue above her head and she still has on her lips the taste of Konrad Weiss’s kisses, her German lover who just proposed to her. But suddenly, her wold is irrevocably altered. In the numbing aftermath of the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost.
Two years later, Hiroko leaves for Delhi, in search of new beginnings. She lives with Konrad’s half-sister, Elizabeth Burton, and her husband James. Their employee, Sajjad Ashraf, starts to teach her Urdu. Together, they will find themselves in a world where old wars are replaced by new conflicts, as the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan replace World War II.
Destinies of Hiroko, the Burtons and the Ashrafs will intertwined, as they’re transported from Karachi to New York and for some of them to Afghanistan, in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound these families together over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences.
This book had been a real slap in the face. In the good way, I assure you! Only reading this Goodreads’ summary made me want to read it again. I was so moved and touched by the themes it covered… But first, let’s talk about the author a bit.
Kamila Shamsie
So, “Burnt Shadows” is the fifth novel of Kamila Shamsie, an English-Pakistani novelist, born in 1973. She wrote her first novel when she was still in college and received for it the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in Pakistan. “Burnt Shadows”, wrote in 2009, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. Shamsie is now living in London and is a journalist at “The Guardian” and at the BBC.
I have to be honest, I didn’t read any of her other books, but I was so shaken by “Burnt Shadows” I think I will definitely try something else. She knows what she’s talking about. Her descriptions are so vivid and real she can transport you right at the heart of Delhi or in the streets of Karachi with a few words. And more importantly, she makes you feel things. Through her words, you live all those awful things Hiroko lives. It’s wonderful and horrible at the same time; I can’t even describe it properly.
I’ve lived through Hitler, Stalin, the Cold War, the British Empire, segregation, apartheid, God knows what. The world will survive this, and with just a tiny bit of luck so will everyone you love. – “Burnt Shadows” (Kamila Shamsie)
As you’ve read in the summary, Nagasaki is only the beginning of Hiroko’s suffering. She’s transporting us through all the biggest conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries. We see India under the colonialist era, struggles with the Pakistan, New York and the terrorist attack against the Wolrd Trade Center, war in Afghanistan. We see paranoia, terrorism, wars, conflicts, violence, fear, losses and pain. This is moving, heart-breaking, overwhelming, unsettling. But all of this is written with so much sensibility and subtlety, it’s bluffing. No exaggeration. Just brutal reality. You can only be shaken and touched by all of this.
Moreover, Hiroko is an amazing character. She’s so attaching. All her scenes are impregnated with a softness that lightens your heart. She speaks the truth and go through all these difficult events her head held high you wonder how she makes it. But the fact is: Hiroko is strong. She’s the central point of the story, the character to which all the others turn. She loses everything, little by little. But she remains strong and never lets herself down. When you’re surprised, and lost, and sad because of a sudden and violent loss, she’s not. She continues, no matter what. And it feels so good to read about such a strong female character. She gave me hope when I had none.
Yes, I know everything can disappear in a flash of light. That doesn’t make anything less valuable. – “Burnt Shadows” (Kamila Shamsie)
As I said, it’s remarkably well-written, and there are a lot of just and meaningful quotes that will strike you right in the heart. It is so vivid you really have the impression to dive into India at the end of the 20th century. There are a lot of specific terms, by example with some distinctions between Afghans or hazaras, but I’ve never been lost, because Shamsie explains all this very well.
This book is mind-blowing, literally. This is the kind of book you can’t stop thinking about after closing it. I was obsessed days after finishing reading it, pondering over men’s cruelty and violence. I’ve been so touched and moved… It’s wonderful, truly. And I recommend it thousands times and more. It can seem totally depressing at first, this long gallery of conflicts, but it’s not. Not totally, at least. Because in the middle of everything, there’s Hiroko, and Hiroko symbolizes liberty, she’s the one gleam of hope amongst all the rest.
You’re gonna feel a void after the end. But this is definitely worth it. My most beautiful discovery of the year, without hesitation. And I hope you’ll love it as much as I did.
See you soon guys,
Lots of love,
Léa
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