The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s <i>A God in Every Stone</i>

Margarida Pereira Martins

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone

Margarida Pereira Martins^*

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 9, Issue 4)

Received: 12 March 2024 Accepted: 7 April 2024 Published: 23 September 2024

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Abstract

Approximately 1.4 million Indians were recruited to the First World War. Despite their role in the war and the high number of deaths, most of the literature in English on the Great War has been narrowed down to British experience. However, in recent years their stories have been emerging through fiction, in academic research and educational projects resulting in a more complete picture of the war and who was involved. A British arts education group engaged students in a project designed to teach and share the stories of forgotten soldiers from World War I. Writing about the project in The Guardian in 2018 Kamila Shamsie claimed the aim was to teach school children about the war and the involvement of non-British recruits whose narratives had up till then been unknown. In academia, respected scholars such as Santanu Das or Claire Buck have undergone thorough research on the representation of Indian recruits through an analysis of literary texts and artefacts states that war memories of the Indian sepoy whose stories were left behind and forgotten on the battle ground. According to Das, the lack of stories by Indian recruits does not mean that history cannot be rectified since it is possible to recover the experience and memory of the recruits. Recently emerging literary representation of the Indian recruit provided historical insight into their experience shedding light on new perspectives of the War. The aim of this article is to analyse the representation of Indian recruits and their experience of World War I in Kamila Shamsie’s 2014 novel A God in Every Stone. I argue that through fiction, it is possible to construct a broader and more inclusive understanding of this historical event as well as to uncover deeper complexities and anxieties on the Indian colonial experience.

Published in	English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 9, Issue 4) This article belongs to the Special Issue Memory and Counter-memory in Postmodern British Fiction
DOI	10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14
Page(s)	125-131
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Literature, War, India, Colonialism, Decolonization

References

[1]	Shamsie, Kamila. A God in Every Stone. London: Bloomsbury; 2014, p. 52, 17, 40, 257, 67, 59, 68-69, 256, 243, 29.
[2]	Rushdie, Salman. “Imaginary Homelands.” Imaginary Homelands. London: Vintage; 2010, p. 12.
[3]	Smith, Zadie. “Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction.” The New York Review of Books; 2019; [3].
[4]	Gurnah, Abdulrazak. Nobel Lecture. 2021 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2021/gurnah/lecture/
[5]	The Guardian. “Nobel winner Abdulrazak Gurnah says ‘writing cannot be just about polemics.’”. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/08/nobel-winner-abdulrazak-gurnah-says-writing-cannot-be-just-about-polemics [Accessed 3 April 2024].
[6]	The New Yorker. “A Nobel Laureate Revisits the Great War’s African Front”. Available from: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/24/a-nobel-laureate-revisits-the-great-wars-african-front [Accessed 3 April 2024].
[7]	Das, Santanu “Introduction.” Race, Empire and First World War Writing. Edited by Santanu Das. Cambridge University Press; 2011. 1 – 31, p. 70.
[8]	Buck, Claire. “The “World” in World War I. Learning to Think Globally.” Teaching Representations of the First World War. Eds. Debra Rae Cohen and Douglas Higbee. Modern Language Association of America; 2017, kindle.
[9]	Shamsie, Kamila. Home fire. London: Bloomsbury; 2017, p. 62.
[10]	Cohen, Debra Rae; Higbee, Douglas. “Introduction.” Teaching Representations of the First World War. Modern Language Association of America; 2017, kindle.
[11]	Rothberg, Michael. The Implicated Subject: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators (Cultural Memory in the Present). California, Stanford University Press, p. 1.
[12]	Das, Santanu. India, Empire and First World War Culture – Writings, Image, and Songs. Cambridge University Press; 2018, [16, 1-2, 25, 16, 347, 82, 406].
[13]	Financial Times “A God in Every Stone’, by Kamila Shamsie”. Available from: https://www.ft.com/content/ae479ebc-c3ba-11e3-870b-00144feabdc0 [Accessed 3 April 2024]
[14]	The Guardian. “Kamila Shamsie on Trench Brothers: an ode to whitewashed war heroes.” Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/16/kamila-shamsie-trench-brothersbrighton-first-world-war [Accessed 3.04.2024]
[15]	Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on The Philosophy of History.” Illuminations. Edited by Hannah Arendt. New York; Schocken Books; 1968, p. 254.
[16]	Gurnah, Abdulrazak. Afterlives. London: Bloomsbury Publishing; 2021 p. 90, 91, 92.
[17]	Ghosh, Amitav “The Way of the Sepoy.” Foreword from If I die, who will remember me? India and the First World War. Vedica Kant. Delhi: Roli Books, 2014.

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Martins, M. P. (2024). The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. English Language, Literature & Culture, 9(4), 125-131. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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Martins, M. P. The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2024, 9(4), 125-131. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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Martins MP. The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2024;9(4):125-131. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14,
  author = {Margarida Pereira Martins},
  title = {The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone
},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {9},
  number = {4},
  pages = {125-131},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20240904.14},
  abstract = {Approximately 1.4 million Indians were recruited to the First World War. Despite their role in the war and the high number of deaths, most of the literature in English on the Great War has been narrowed down to British experience. However, in recent years their stories have been emerging through fiction, in academic research and educational projects resulting in a more complete picture of the war and who was involved. A British arts education group engaged students in a project designed to teach and share the stories of forgotten soldiers from World War I. Writing about the project in The Guardian in 2018 Kamila Shamsie claimed the aim was to teach school children about the war and the involvement of non-British recruits whose narratives had up till then been unknown. In academia, respected scholars such as Santanu Das or Claire Buck have undergone thorough research on the representation of Indian recruits through an analysis of literary texts and artefacts states that war memories of the Indian sepoy whose stories were left behind and forgotten on the battle ground. According to Das, the lack of stories by Indian recruits does not mean that history cannot be rectified since it is possible to recover the experience and memory of the recruits. Recently emerging literary representation of the Indian recruit provided historical insight into their experience shedding light on new perspectives of the War. The aim of this article is to analyse the representation of Indian recruits and their experience of World War I in Kamila Shamsie’s 2014 novel A God in Every Stone. I argue that through fiction, it is possible to construct a broader and more inclusive understanding of this historical event as well as to uncover deeper complexities and anxieties on the Indian colonial experience.
},
 year = {2024}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone

AU  - Margarida Pereira Martins
Y1  - 2024/09/23
PY  - 2024
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JF  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JO  - English Language, Literature & Culture
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EP  - 131
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2575-2413
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14
AB  - Approximately 1.4 million Indians were recruited to the First World War. Despite their role in the war and the high number of deaths, most of the literature in English on the Great War has been narrowed down to British experience. However, in recent years their stories have been emerging through fiction, in academic research and educational projects resulting in a more complete picture of the war and who was involved. A British arts education group engaged students in a project designed to teach and share the stories of forgotten soldiers from World War I. Writing about the project in The Guardian in 2018 Kamila Shamsie claimed the aim was to teach school children about the war and the involvement of non-British recruits whose narratives had up till then been unknown. In academia, respected scholars such as Santanu Das or Claire Buck have undergone thorough research on the representation of Indian recruits through an analysis of literary texts and artefacts states that war memories of the Indian sepoy whose stories were left behind and forgotten on the battle ground. According to Das, the lack of stories by Indian recruits does not mean that history cannot be rectified since it is possible to recover the experience and memory of the recruits. Recently emerging literary representation of the Indian recruit provided historical insight into their experience shedding light on new perspectives of the War. The aim of this article is to analyse the representation of Indian recruits and their experience of World War I in Kamila Shamsie’s 2014 novel A God in Every Stone. I argue that through fiction, it is possible to construct a broader and more inclusive understanding of this historical event as well as to uncover deeper complexities and anxieties on the Indian colonial experience.

VL  - 9
IS  - 4
ER  -

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Author Information

Margarida Pereira Martins

Department of Humanities, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, Portugal; University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Contact Email

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3534-6787

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Martins, M. P. (2024). The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. English Language, Literature & Culture, 9(4), 125-131. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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ACS Style

Martins, M. P. The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2024, 9(4), 125-131. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

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AMA Style

Martins MP. The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2024;9(4):125-131. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14,
  author = {Margarida Pereira Martins},
  title = {The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone
},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {9},
  number = {4},
  pages = {125-131},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20240904.14},
  abstract = {Approximately 1.4 million Indians were recruited to the First World War. Despite their role in the war and the high number of deaths, most of the literature in English on the Great War has been narrowed down to British experience. However, in recent years their stories have been emerging through fiction, in academic research and educational projects resulting in a more complete picture of the war and who was involved. A British arts education group engaged students in a project designed to teach and share the stories of forgotten soldiers from World War I. Writing about the project in The Guardian in 2018 Kamila Shamsie claimed the aim was to teach school children about the war and the involvement of non-British recruits whose narratives had up till then been unknown. In academia, respected scholars such as Santanu Das or Claire Buck have undergone thorough research on the representation of Indian recruits through an analysis of literary texts and artefacts states that war memories of the Indian sepoy whose stories were left behind and forgotten on the battle ground. According to Das, the lack of stories by Indian recruits does not mean that history cannot be rectified since it is possible to recover the experience and memory of the recruits. Recently emerging literary representation of the Indian recruit provided historical insight into their experience shedding light on new perspectives of the War. The aim of this article is to analyse the representation of Indian recruits and their experience of World War I in Kamila Shamsie’s 2014 novel A God in Every Stone. I argue that through fiction, it is possible to construct a broader and more inclusive understanding of this historical event as well as to uncover deeper complexities and anxieties on the Indian colonial experience.
},
 year = {2024}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - The Archaeology of Absence in Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone

AU  - Margarida Pereira Martins
Y1  - 2024/09/23
PY  - 2024
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14
T2  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JF  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JO  - English Language, Literature & Culture
SP  - 125
EP  - 131
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2575-2413
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20240904.14
AB  - Approximately 1.4 million Indians were recruited to the First World War. Despite their role in the war and the high number of deaths, most of the literature in English on the Great War has been narrowed down to British experience. However, in recent years their stories have been emerging through fiction, in academic research and educational projects resulting in a more complete picture of the war and who was involved. A British arts education group engaged students in a project designed to teach and share the stories of forgotten soldiers from World War I. Writing about the project in The Guardian in 2018 Kamila Shamsie claimed the aim was to teach school children about the war and the involvement of non-British recruits whose narratives had up till then been unknown. In academia, respected scholars such as Santanu Das or Claire Buck have undergone thorough research on the representation of Indian recruits through an analysis of literary texts and artefacts states that war memories of the Indian sepoy whose stories were left behind and forgotten on the battle ground. According to Das, the lack of stories by Indian recruits does not mean that history cannot be rectified since it is possible to recover the experience and memory of the recruits. Recently emerging literary representation of the Indian recruit provided historical insight into their experience shedding light on new perspectives of the War. The aim of this article is to analyse the representation of Indian recruits and their experience of World War I in Kamila Shamsie’s 2014 novel A God in Every Stone. I argue that through fiction, it is possible to construct a broader and more inclusive understanding of this historical event as well as to uncover deeper complexities and anxieties on the Indian colonial experience.

VL  - 9
IS  - 4
ER  -

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