Burnt Shadows is a novel in four sections that details the story of two different families, and how they connect. The story begins at the end of World War II, and continues throughout the partition of India, wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and 9/11.
As the novel opens, the reader is brought to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison in Cuba. An unnamed prisoner ponders how he ended up at the highly guarded facility. The remainder of the novel seeks to answer this prisoner's question, following a timeline of events beginning in 1945.
In Nagasaki, Hiroko Tanaka is a munitions worker living in Japan during the end of World War II. Her love for the German Konrad Weiss is brought to an expeditious end when an atomic bomb is dropped on the city. The tragic event leads Hiroko to seek refuge in Delhi, India, where she stays with Konrad's half-sister, Elizabeth. She falls in love with Sajjad Ashraf, who is teaching her the South-Asian language of Urdu.
After Sajjad's mother dies, Hiroko and Sajjad marry. They take their honeymoon in Istanbul, unaware of the fact that their departure means they will never return to Delhi due to the imminent Partition. Hiroko and Sajjad have a son, named Raza. Raza eventually meets a CIA agent named Harry Burton, who is Elizabeth's son.
Raza gets involved in the Afghanistan jihadist movement by posing as an Afghan. He and his young friend, Abdullah, run away to a mujahideen training camp. Sajjad, in his desperation to find his son, reveals the name of a CIA operative at the wrong time and place and is shot and killed.
Years later, Elizabeth and Hiroko end up moving to New York to try to find some stability in their lives. Elizabeth has divorced her husband James, and taken on her original identity now that the war is over. Kim, Harry's daughter, spends a lot of time with the aging women.
Raza begins to work with Harry, who has left the CIA for a private contractor. After 9/11, Kim is distraught. Harry and Raza are working on behalf of the United States government in Afghanistan during the War on Terror. Raza, who has not heard from Abdullah in decades, learns that he is on the run from the FBI in New York City. At the same time, Raza is blamed for Harry's murder and has to go on the run as well.
Kim and Hiroko help Abdullah cross the border to Canada. Raza is waiting for Abdullah there, and they have a conversation in a diner. Through the window of the diner, Raza can see that Kim is turning Abdullah in to the police. Raza tells Abdullah to run and takes his place. Kim and Raza meet face-to-face for the first time as he is being taken away.
Although not directly stated, it is implied that Raza was the prisoner seen at the beginning of the novel.
