Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Five Notable Pakistani Authors and our BookBrowse Review of Burnt Shadows.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About this Guide
The following author biography and list of questions about
Burnt Shadows are intended as resources to
aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the
author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place
for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might
approach
Burnt Shadows.
About this Book
Burnt Shadows begins begins in Nagasaki at the end of World War II,
and ends shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In between,
the characters are tossed upon the swells of a turbulent half-century, their
lives touched by the partition of India, the nuclear arms race, the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia, and the suppression of liberties in
America after 9/11. But the novel does not merely present these events as
a backdrop, rather it shows that human beings must reckon with them in highly
personal ways; that an historic gesture may move a country's border (as with
partition) or devastate a population (as with the atomic bomb), but, in the end,
history is also a story about individual people and relationships.
A novel of uncommon ambition and scope, Burnt Shadows offers much to discuss.
Discussion Questions
-
Early in the novel, Hiroko observes that during the World
War II everything has been "distilled or distorted into its most functional
form," including a vegetable patch where once Azaleas grew, and she asks,
"What prompted this falling-off of love?" Can you find other places in the
novel where this idea is expressed? Is there a similarity between the garden
and a suicide bomber?
-
How does Hiroko resist being simply Hibakusha, a victim of
the bomb, and in what ways is she powerless to change this perception of
her? Consider also how it affects her son, Raza. Is it impossible to escape
certain legacies?
-
Discuss the different reasons that Konrad, Elizabeth, Sajjad
and Harry leave their home in India, and why Hiroko leaves Japan, and then
Pakistan. What does it mean to have a home, and to be displaced? How is it
different when you don't have a choice to stay? Ultimately, do the
characters ever have a country to call their own?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Picador.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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