The Performance of Identity in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows

Abstract

The paper discusses the processes of identity construction enacted by the main character in the novel Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie focusing on the performative relationship existing between agency and identity. The aim is to explore the ways in which the author portrays the relationship between relevant political facts and the dynamics of identity formation. Such events can indeed become a driving force to enact a process of identity formation that questions certain social conventions. In the novel historical events become a drive to agency and thus to the performative construction of the self. Such a construction process brings the protagonist of Shamsie’s novel to develop a position highly critical of nationalisms and nationalistic policies and to embrace the idea of possible transnational solidarities.