Home Fire

Author: Kamila Shamsie

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General Fields

  • : 27.00 NZD
  • : 9781408886786
  • : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • : Bloomsbury Circus
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  • : 0.297
  • : February 2017
  • : 216mm X 135mm
  • : United Kingdom
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Kamila Shamsie
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  • : Paperback
  • : Export/Airside
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  • : English
  • : 823.92
  • : 288
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Barcode 9781408886786
9781408886786

Local Description

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire is a powerful and affecting novel about what it means to be Muslim in contemporary Britain. It’s a tale of loyalty, betrayal, politics, and the deeply personal. The book opens with Isma in airport security, travelling to America to study. The older sister of twins, Aneeka and Pasvaiz, Isma has had responsibility for their parenting and for the economic stability of the family unit since her mother and grandmother died within weeks of the other. Their father, a jihadist fighter, remembered only by Isma, is only a shadowy legacy - one that paints a picture of violent death at the hands of allied forces. Aneeka and Pasvaiz, now out from the protective umbrella of their sister, become increasingly independent. Aneeka, studying law and often out with friends, is beautiful and enigmatic, devout in her own way. Pasvaiz, with no scholarship to attend university, is at a loose end, working at the local greengrocer with dreams of being a revolutionary sound engineer. While Isma is busy with her studies, meeting a privileged man, Eamonn (son of a Muslim British politician) and Aneeka is living her life to the full, Pasvaiz becomes increasingly isolated and secretive. He meets Farooq, a recruiter for Isis, who tells him heroic tales about his father and points out the injustices in the system. Offered a job in Syria, he leaves under the pretence of visiting family in Pakistan. Pasvaiz is young, naive, and craving a father figure he has never had. Once in the Middle East, he realises his mistake. His passport is taken from him, his cell phone destroyed, and all contact with anyone outside the organisation is highly monitored or non-existent. Eamonn returns to the UK and meets Aneeka. A love affair develops between them, a relationship that Aneeka hopes will pave the way to the door of the Home Secretary - Eamonn’s father. Shamsie builds a perfect framework of family, faith and love, impinged on by politics and ambition. Home Fire is a modern rendition of the play, Antigone, the story of a young woman torn between what is expected and her love for her outcast brother. The story starts quietly with Isma’s viewpoint. Isma is sensible, clever and prepared to underplay her cultural difference for a safe and non-confrontational life, yet there is a barbed edge to her actions just under the surface. In Aneeka, this edge is front and centre and she will do anything for her twin, even deceive those she loves the most. As the story progresses, the tension mounts, and the attitudes of the family, the community and the politicians are exposed, accumulating in a terrifying breaking point. Shamsie won the Woman’s Prize for Fiction this week in the UK, with the judges pronouncing it ‘the story of our times’.Home Fire is a breathtaking work which hits hard and is tender at its heart.  

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Description

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 'Elegant and evocative ... A powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world' Guardian 'There is high, high music in the air at the end of Home Fire' New York Times 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.

Promotion info

From the Orange and Baileys Prize-shortlisted author comes an urgent, explosive story of love and a family torn apart

Awards

Longlisted for the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction

Reviews

Home Fire left me awestruck, shaken, on the edge of my chair, filled with admiration for her courage and ambition. Recommended reading for prime ministers and presidents everywhere -- Peter Carey Shamsie's simple, lucid prose plays in perfect harmony with the heartbeat of modern times. Home Fire deftly reveals all the ways in which the political is as personal as the personal is political. No novel could be as timely -- Aminatta Forna Retells Antigone against the backdrop of contemporary London, weaving a poignant and timely tale of two British Muslim families with differing ideas about loyalty to the state * Observer, Fiction to Look out for in 2017 * Into the ranks of international voices steps Kamila Shamsie, who seems as if she has heard, and listened, to the music of what surrounds us -- Colum McCann Shamsie excavates the deepest corners of the human heart * Observer * Strong storytelling ... A page-turner that is also a literary delight -- Jeanette Winterson Its pages are lit by Shamsie's eloquent prose ... A novel well worth reading -- Helen Dunmore * Guardian * Shamsie is adept at excavating the past and braids the personal and political to great effect * Independent on Sunday * I can't recommend A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie too strongly ... Exciting and, in the end, profoundly moving -- Antonia Fraser A very rare and uniquely rewarding writer -- Pankaj Mishra Kamila Shamsie is a writer of immense ambition and strength. She understands a great deal about the ways in which the world's many tragedies and histories shape one another -- Salman Rushdie I love Shamsie's beautiful painting with words -- Shami Chakrabarti Shamsie's voice is clear and compelling, with a welcoming sparseness * Guardian * A good novelist blurs the imaginary line between us and them; Kamila Shamsie is the rare writer who makes one forget there was ever such a thing as a line. Home Fire is a remarkable novel, both timely and necessary -- Rabih Alameddine A searing novel about the choices people make for love, and for the place they call home -- Laila Lalami Kamila Shamsie's new one, Home Fire reimagines Antigone in two modern Muslim families * Alex Preston, Observer, Summer Reading *

Author description

Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels: In the City by the Sea (shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; Kartography (also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Broken Verses; Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction) and, most recently, A God in Every Stone, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London. @kamilashamsie