Burnt Shadows

Burnt Shadows is a novel that explores history in unexpected and moving ways

By: Jennifer Russell Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows follows the interwoven lives of two families as they live through what are now considered major historical events. As soon as I opened the novel and saw the date and location, I couldn’t stop reading. The novel begins with the story of two lovers on August 9, 1945 in Nagasaki — the day that the US dropped an atomic bomb there.      After the expected death of one lover, the story then follows the life of the other and her struggles with loss and with being a hibakusha (a survivor of the…

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