Abstract:

The relationship between memory and literature has occupied the agenda of literary environment for centuries. This bond seems to be so strong that new literary subgenres uplifting memory to a major and dominant position in literature have emerged. On the other hand, space and identity have also been regarded as the components of this relationship in the process of writing; or in other words, in the process of (re)invention or (re)production. Kamila Shamsie is among the authors examining the relation among memory, space, identity and literature in their works. In her novel, Burnt Shadows, she fictionalises the story of a Japanese lady, Hiroko Tanaka, injured in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki during the Second World War. The bombing has left both mental and physical damages on her. The author has externalised those damages through images and symbols. This article aims to discuss the relationship between memory and space through those externalised images and symbols. In this study, the reason why the author prefers the crane as the image symbolising the memory and why she chooses the back of Hiroko as the space of memory is tried to be examined within the frame of the relationship between memory and space in literature. In addition, the role and contribution of space and memory in the search of identity and the importance of life experience with regards to the construction of identity is also one of the goals of the study that is tried to be revealed.

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