Home fire

After the death of their mother and grandmother, the responsibility for caring for her brother and sister fell to the eldest, Isma. She put her dreams aside, forgot her ambitions, and devoted herself to Anika and Parviz. Now they've grown up, each pursuing their own paths. Isma is free and ready to return to university. But her worry for her brother and sister remains. Anika is flighty and too beautiful. And Parviz chose a dark path—he disappeared into the haze of the Middle East, hoping to understand their jihadist father. Isma, Anika, Parviz, and the rest of the novel's characters will face a difficult choice they cannot escape. What is stronger: blood ties or love? What is more important: mercy or loyalty to the law?
Kamila Shamsi's novel is a modern take on Sophocles's "Antigone." This ancient tragedy unfolds in a contemporary setting, yet the power of human emotion has not waned since the time of Sophocles. In 2017, the book was nominated for the Booker Prize, and in 2018, it won the Women's Prize for Fiction.

A good novelist blurs the line between her characters and the reader. Kamila Shamsie is a rare writer; she makes you forget such a line exists.

Rabih Alameddine

"Home Fire" left me stunned and captivated. It is required reading for prime ministers and presidents everywhere.

Peter Carey

Shamsie's lucid prose unexpectedly harmonizes with the frenetic heartbeat of our times. "Home Fire" vividly demonstrates how diverse human paths can be, and how unexpectedly they can converge. I know of no novel more relevant.
Aminata Forna

A passionate novel about what people do in the name of love and in the name of what they call home.
Leila Lalami

One of the most unforgettable final scenes in this century's literature, the ending of "Home Fire" is sublime music suspended in the air.
New York Times

Kamila Shamsie's prose is elegant and captivating. Her novel is a captivating story about what matters most: the interests of society or humanity, family or faith.
Guardian

Kamila Shamsie was certainly inspired by "Antigone," but her novel is deeply original. It raises the same questions Sophocles raised a couple of millennia ago, but does so in a completely different way, from a different angle, and, of course, in a completely different context. The novel is full of brilliant scenes, its rhythm sometimes lulling, sometimes exploding with a feverish throb. Shamsi explores how political and religious issues can become deeply personal, how they can lead to tragedy, both devastating and uplifting.
Washington Post

This is a short novel, but it feels like reading something epic.
Telegraph

This novel explores how the only way to resist fundamentalism fueled by hatred is to embrace the fundamentalism of love.
Sunday Times

In this ancient yet modern tragedy, all the characters—fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, lovers—will converge in a monumental crescendo.
Vogue

A novel-commentary on loyalty, love, justice, politics, terrorism, religion, and family.
Buzzfeed

One of the best novels of this year. A smart, subtle, and not at all didactic novel about how global politics penetrates the family and the human soul. "Home Fire" has everything that good fiction should have: intrigue, beauty, depth, and suspense.
Spectator

Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi, where she grew up. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts (USA). Her first novel, "City by the Sea," was published in 1998. That same year, it was nominated for the John Llewelyn Rhys Award (UK). In 1999, Shamsie won the Prime Minister's Award (Pakistan). In 2000, after the publication of her second novel, "Salt and Saffron," the Orange Prize organizing committee named her one of the "21 best writers of the 21st century." Her third novel, "Cartography," was again nominated for the John Llewelyn Rhys Award in the UK. "Cartography" and her subsequent novel, "Broken Verses," won the Pakistan Academy of Letters Award. Her fifth novel, "Burnt Shadows," was nominated for the Orange Prize. Kamila Shamsie's most recent novel, "Home Fire," was shortlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize and won the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction. The writer lives in London and Karachi, Pakistan. In 2018, she joined the prestigious Gold Booker Prize jury, which will select the best novel of the decade.