Raza, who has not heard from Abdullah in decades, learns that he is on the run from the FBI in New York City. Harry and Raza are working on behalf of the United States government in Afghanistan during the War on Terror. Raza begins to work with Harry, who has left the CIA for a private contractor. Kim, Harry's daughter, spends a lot of time with the aging women. Elizabeth has divorced her husband James, and taken on her original identity now that the war is over. Years later, Elizabeth and Hiroko end up moving to New York to try to find some stability in their lives. Sajjad, in his desperation to find his son, reveals the name of a CIA operative at the wrong time and place and is shot and killed. He and his young friend, Abdullah, run away to a mujahideen training camp. Raza gets involved in the Afghanistan jihadist movement by posing as an Afghan. Raza eventually meets a CIA agent named Harry Burton, who is Elizabeth's son. Hiroko and Sajjad have a son, named Raza. They take their honeymoon in Istanbul, unaware of the fact that their departure means they will never return to Delhi due to the imminent Partition. She falls in love with Sajjad Ashraf, who is teaching her the South-Asian language of Urdu.Īfter Sajjad's mother dies, Hiroko and Sajjad marry. The tragic event leads Hiroko to seek refuge in Delhi, India, where she stays with Konrad's half-sister, Elizabeth. Her love for the German Konrad Weiss is brought to an expeditious end when an atomic bomb is dropped on the city. In Nagasaki, Hiroko Tanaka is a munitions worker living in Japan during the end of World War II.

The remainder of the novel seeks to answer this prisoner's question, following a timeline of events beginning in 1945.

An unnamed prisoner ponders how he ended up at the highly guarded facility. The story begins at the end of World War II, and continues throughout the partition of India, wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and 9/11.Īs the novel opens, the reader is brought to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison in Cuba. Burnt Shadowsis a novel in four sections that details the story of two different families, and how they connect.

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie