Burnt Shadows

  August 9th，1945，Nagasaki．Hiroko Tanaka steps onto her veranda，wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back．She is twenty—one and on the verge of marrying Konrad Weiss．In a split second，the world turns white．In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known，all that remains are the bird，shaped　burns on her back，an indelible reminder of the world she has lost．

KAMILA SHAMSIE was born in 1973 in Karachi．She is the author of four previous novels：in the city by the Sea，Kartography(both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize)，Sah and Saffron and Broken Verses．Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan’s Academy of Letters．