Kamila Shamsie's new book is about lost homelands

Burnt Shadows
Kamila Shamsie
Bloomsbury Publishing
Rs 425
Rating: JJJJ

This book will be read because

It's the new, representative World Fiction, with the entire globe as its location, and India is an important focal point.

If at all there is irony or implausibility in a Japanese woman living in Karachi in a house bought using the diamonds her now-deceased German fiancu00e9's half-sister had received as a wedding present from her English husband, it would only occur to you after you had finished enjoying the book, and then only as ironical or implausible as much of life itself.

The main characters are from two families. One is English-German, and the other is Indian-Japanese but becomes Pakistani-Japanese after Partition. America and Afghanistan also have significant roles.

Even though words like "ambitious" and "epic" are being used to describe this book (in a transparent bid to impress potential buyers and make us feel virtuously intellectual) more functional and down-to-earth ones such as "approachable" and "engrossing" would serve as well. The transitions, across time as well as culture, are smooth and unpretentious. And the language is so simple and subtle that you hardly notice it as it paints vivid and lifelike pictures for you.