Anywhere: Kamila Shamsie burnt shadows (Keywords)

August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda. She is twenty-one and on the verge of marrying Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on ...

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…August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kim...

August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka takes in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one and in love with the man she is to marry. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it exp...

'Burnt Shadows' is a powerful, sweeping epic crossing generations, cultures and continents.

'Burnt Shadows' is a powerful, sweeping epic crossing generations, cultures and continents.

One early summer morning, while lazing happily on the roof, Hasan watches a young boy flying a yellow kite fall to his death. Soon after, Hasan's idyllic, sheltered family life is shattered when his beloved uncle Salman, a dissenting politician, is arrested and charged with treason. Set in a land...

Aasmaani refuses to believe her mother is dead and still dreams of her glorious return. Now grown up and living in Karachi, Aasmaani receives what could be the longed-for proof that her mother is still alive. As she comes closer to the truth she is also irresistibly drawn to Ed, her ally and spar...