Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she is finally studying in America, resuming a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London - or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream: to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Handsome and privileged, he inhabits a London worlds away from theirs. As the son of a powerful British Muslim politician, Eamonn has his own birthright to live up to - or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
A contemporary reimagining of Sophocles' Antigone, Home …
Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she is finally studying in America, resuming a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London - or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream: to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Handsome and privileged, he inhabits a London worlds away from theirs. As the son of a powerful British Muslim politician, Eamonn has his own birthright to live up to - or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
A contemporary reimagining of Sophocles' Antigone, Home Fire is an urgent, fiercely compelling story of loyalties torn apart when love and politics collide - confirming Kamila Shamsie as a master storyteller of our times.
A British-Pakistani family gets caught (& distraught) on the three horns of identity, politics & jihad. Deeply immersive for a range of perspectives.
Content warning Content warning
The combination of Antigone, the psychological and physical abuse of jihadi grooming, and the horrors of present day UK media, social media and politics makes for a difficult read.
I heard Kamila Shamsie on Krishnan Guru-Murthy's "Ways to Change the World" podcast, thought she was very intelligent and articulate, and went to see what the library's e-book system had from her. This was the only offering unfortunately. Shamsie is indeed intelligent and articulate and her writing ability makes the rawness of the book's difficult combination bearable.
I feel ill-equipped to comment on the content. It's her lane.
Since reading Burnt Shadows I've wanted to discover more of Kamila Shamsie's fiction. She is a fine novelist. Her prose is never tedious or clumsy. She can manage a range from the everyday to the urgent, and in the everyday she repeatedly slips in observations about how life feels which make me marvel and assent. She can sketch in a character's backstory without boring you. She is wry, empathetic, economical in her effects, truly serious without solemnity, able to handle a variety of narrative viewpoints. I'll be reading more, I hope.
Home Fire (a title which invokes both the family and the military) is set in 2015, when IS was rampant and the UK government was throwing its forces and propaganda behind the security state. Anyone with brown skin was likely to be searched, prevented from travelling, and spat at in the streets -- even more than usual, I should …
Since reading Burnt Shadows I've wanted to discover more of Kamila Shamsie's fiction. She is a fine novelist. Her prose is never tedious or clumsy. She can manage a range from the everyday to the urgent, and in the everyday she repeatedly slips in observations about how life feels which make me marvel and assent. She can sketch in a character's backstory without boring you. She is wry, empathetic, economical in her effects, truly serious without solemnity, able to handle a variety of narrative viewpoints. I'll be reading more, I hope.
Home Fire (a title which invokes both the family and the military) is set in 2015, when IS was rampant and the UK government was throwing its forces and propaganda behind the security state. Anyone with brown skin was likely to be searched, prevented from travelling, and spat at in the streets -- even more than usual, I should add. British muslims had to consider where they went and what they googled. Shamsie depicts the lives of three siblings who respond in different ways to their time and predicament.
The novel's structure, protagonists and theme are taken from the story of Antigone, which you definitely don't have to know, but can look up if you want spoilers. The epigraph is from Seamus Heaney's translation of Sophocles's play: "The ones we love ... are enemies of the state." Which is Shamsie's theme.
