Nation & Belonging
Nation & Belonging

Summary/Abstract: „Burnt Shadows“ and „A God in Every Stone“ are about ‘otherness’ where characters wander through worlds of ‘un-belonging’ negotiating pathways of ‘home’ and ‘place’ disrupted by global events. Kamila Shamsie’s creates subjects whose cultural identities are multilayered, on the move and bearing the marks of many cultures in constructions of ‘self’. Kamila Shamsie highlights a cosmopolitan identity drawn from these different cultural influences in challenging discourses of homogeneous national identities, positioning ‘home’ anywhere in opposition to ethnicity, the same linguistic and cultural backgrounds highlighting the fluidity of belonging in a global, interconnected world, fractured by world events with the resulting displacement of people. Both stories are intercepted by war, colonialism and the events of 9/11. Her characters reflect cultures of mixed-ness which like their sense of ‘self’ are always on the move and unmoored. In Burnt Shadows, Shamie writes of her character, Hiroko. ‘“It didn’t bother her in the least to know she would always be a foreigner in Pakistan – she had no interest in belonging to anything as contradictory insubstantial and damaging as a nation....”’ (Shamsie). Like her characters Kamila Shamsie divides her time between more than one ‘home’ living in America, London and Karachi. “I have a home in all three places now.” (Brown) It is within the framing of ‘otherness’ that this paper will explore ‘belonging’ and ‘nation’

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