Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2017
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences.
Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she's accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume 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. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma's worst fears are confirmed.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Suddenly, two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
Women's Prize for Fiction, 2018
"Gut-wrenching and undeniably relevant to today's world… In accessible, unwavering prose and without any heavy-handedness, Shamsie addresses an impressive mix of contemporary issues, from Muslim profiling to cultural assimilation and identity to the nuances of international relations. This shattering work leaves a lasting emotional impression." - Booklist (starred review)
"Memorable...salient and heartbreaking, culminating in a shocking ending." - Publisher's Weekly
"Two-time Orange Prize nominee Shamsie (A God in Every Stone) has written an explosive novel with big questions about the nature of justice, defiance, and love." - Kirkus Reviews
"Ingenious… Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." - The New York Times
"One pays it the highest compliment one can pay fiction; it makes you think. Uncomfortably." - The Times (UK)
"utterly contemporary and deeply original too." - The Evening Standard (UK)
"Home Fire is everything literary fiction should be — an exciting, beautiful, profound novel of lasting value that deserves laurels." - The Spectator (UK)
"Propulsive and unfailingly elegant... [Shamsie's] brave and brilliant novel strongly suggests that the only way to counter hate-filled fundamentalism is with a fundamentalism of love." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"Home Fire left me awestruck, shaken, on the edge of my chair, filled with admiration for her courage and ambition." - Peter Carey, Booker Prize-winning author of Oscar and Lucinda
"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, author of The Memory of Love
"A searing novel about the choices people make for love, and for the place they call home." - Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Moor's Account
"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, author of An Unnecessary Woman
This information about Home Fire was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Pakistan. Her first novel, In the City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and her second, Salt and Saffron, won her a place on Orange's list of '21 Writers for the 21st Century'. In 1999 Kamila received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan. She has a BA in Creative Writing from Hamilton College in Clinton New York, where she has also taught Creative Writing, and a MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She also writes for The Guardian, The New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect magazine, and broadcasts on radio. Kartography (2004), explores the strained relationship between soulmates Karim and Raheen, set against a backdrop ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Name Pronunciation
Kamila Shamsie: ka-MEE-lah shum-Sea
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