The richness of Shamsie's fiction is in the ways in which varied themes and stories within a novel are multilayered, interact and are part of each other, so that the narrative about a person or a couple is viewed within a larger, more socially dense context. Her novels both show the difficulty of leaving the society in which one feels at ease and the need to solve present problems through understanding the past. Besides politics threatening or causing loss of family or friends, there is a love story disturbed by differences of class, culture or ethnicity. The novels treat the relationship of national events to the personal. The military is important because it controlled Pakistani politics since the partition of India: Burnt Shadows shows the effects of the Japanese and American military upon individuals. © 2011 Bruce King.

Karachi desire Kamila Shamsie memory Family Love History

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