Kamila Shamsie in Conversation with journalist Razia Iqbal
Novelist Kamila Shamsie reads from her latest novel, HOME FIRE - long-listed for this year's Man Booker Prize
Thursday 28 September, 6.30pm
Prize-winning novelist Kamila Shamsie discusses with BBC journalist Razia Iqbal her contemporary retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone, Home Fire is a powerful, urgent tale of love, politics, family and enmity, confronting one of the defining issues of our age
"Left me awestruck, on the edge of my chair, filled with admiration for her courage and ambition" Peter Carey
Isma is free. After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she is finally studying in America. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London – or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. 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 devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
"In perfect harmony with the heartbeat of modern times. No novel could be as timely" Aminatta Forna
Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels: In the City by the Sea; Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; 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.
Razia Iqbal is BBC News journalist, reporting for outlets across the BBC as a special correspondent, presenting Talking Books on the BBC News Channel and Newshour on BBC World Service. She has also served as the BBC's arts correspondent.