This paper offers a comparative analysis of two novels: Galadio (2010) by French writer Didier Daeninckx and A God in Every Stone (2014) by Pakistani-British writer Kamila Shamsie. Both situate the First World War in an unusual perspective by "unsilencing" previously marginalized war experience: that of French West Africans (Daeninckx) and the Pashtuns from British India (Shamsie). However, if they pay tribute to those who died on the "fields of glory", Daeninckx and Shamsie refuse to legitimate colonialism and war, highlighting dehumanization and racism. Synchronously, the paper explores continuities between the 1914-1918 conflict and other violent histories in the novels under consideration, namely the atrocities of the Holocaust and the persecution of Afro-Germans in Nazi Germany (Daeninckx), as well as the 1930 Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre in Peshawar, British India (Shamsie). Daeninckx and Shamsie thus move beyond "the myopia of 2018" (Winter 2019) and highlight the long-lasting sequels of the first global conflict. Referring to postcolonial studies, recent research on First World War commemoration, as well as Michael Rothberg's concept of multidirectional memories, I explore the potential of crosscutting memories to create unique forms of solidarity and justice. Finally, I examine the new questions that Daeninckx and Shamsie ask about the memory of the First World War and the role of entangled histories in illuminating the violent legacy of the past.
