Home Fire (novel)
Home Fire (2017) is the seventh novel by
Home Fire won the
and shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018.The concerns of the novel include the identity and security of Muslims in Britain. It speaks of the troubles of Muslims as they struggle to maintain a unique cultural identity while defending their ''Britishness'' and loyalty to the state against political and social activists who wish to alienate them.[3]
Development and publication history
Shamsie began Home Fire at the suggestion of London theatre director Jatinder Verma that Shamsie write a modern update of Antigone, by Sophocles. Shamsie was interested in the project and quickly decided on what the story she would tell, though she preferred to pursue it as a novel rather than a play.[4]
In an interview with The Jakarta Post, she described her writing process:
''When I read the play—which has at its center two sisters who respond differently to the legal repercussions of their brother's act of treason—I knew immediately that I wanted to connect it to a story that was very much in the news at the time, that of young British Muslims and their relationship with the British state...When you write a novel you don't think about subjects as being sensitive or not—you just think of them as being interesting and complex, and you wonder how to tell them in a story that's about a group of characters.''[5]
The book's epigraph quotes from Seamus Heaney's translation of Antigone: "The ones we love ... are enemies of the state."[6]
The 288-page novel was published on 15 August 2017, by Riverhead Books.[7] It was serialised for BBC Radio 4 in April 2019.[8]
Synopsis
The novel begins with Isma Pasha detained in security at
Meanwhile in Britain, Eamonn's father is made Home Secretary, prompting Eamonn to discover Isma both knows and sharply dislikes his father. Offended, Eamonn abruptly leaves. Isma is very hurt but Hira advises her to open up to Eamonn, as Isma clearly has feelings for him. Isma is initially reluctant but in the meantime she receives a distraught call from Aneeka, who demands to know why Isma had informed on Parvaiz to the police. Aneeka says that it is Isma's fault Parvaiz cannot return to the UK. She cuts off contact with Isma, who is devastated and texts Eamonn asking to meet. She greets him without her hijab for the first time and tells him the story of her father, who was absent much of her life (and the entire lives of her young siblings), fighting as a jihadi in various conflicts. Her father was captured and held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan before dying in transport to Guantanamo Bay. After his death, Isma's family had sought help from the local MP to learn the details of his fate—they don't know where or even if he was buried—but the MP had brusquely turned them away, declaring the family was better off without him. This MP was Karamat Lone, Eamonn's father. Eamonn is pained to learn this, though he tries to defend his father. They reconcile, partially, though Isma is wounded when he refers to his relationship to her as like a "brother" and she makes an excuse not to see him again before he ends his sojourn in the U.S. and returns to London. But seeing photographs of her siblings as well as a pack of M&M's she has wrapped to send to her aunt, he insists on carrying the candy back to mail for her in London. When he leaves, Isma breaks down in tears, heartbroken that he does not reciprocate her romantic interest.
Back in London, Eamonn treks to Isma's aunt's house in
Moving back in time to just prior to Isma's departure, Parvaiz is working at a grocery and pursuing his interest in sound engineering; while a scholarship allows Aneeka to attend university, he cannot afford tuition. The twins spend more and more time apart, and Parvaiz encounters Farooq, whose father had fought in Bosnia with Parvaiz's father. Farooq encourages Parvaiz to learn about what happened to his father at Bagram; he is also sharply critical of the matriarchal family in which Parvaiz grew up, as well as of the British austerity measures that affect Parvaiz's life as well. He persuades Parvaiz that the ISIS Caliphate in Syria has remedied all this, showing him photos of his own time there. With Farooq's assurances that Parvaiz would be allowed to leave at any time if he wished, and also that Farooq would introduce him to others who had fought with Parvaiz's father, Parvaiz makes arrangements to visit family in Pakistan, but skips his connecting flight in Istanbul and instead travels with Farooq to the Syrian border to join ISIS. While the house they arrive at is beautiful, the rest of Farooq's promises immediately prove empty—Parvaiz's passport is confiscated on arrival and Farooq departs for the battlefront without helping him locate anyone who knew his father, leaving Parvaiz behind in Raqqa. He receives a panicked call from his sisters, who know he has missed his flight and are being interrogated by police in London, cementing Parvaiz's regret for his decision, but he is trapped. He works for the media wing of ISIS until his twin calls a few months later saying she is making a plan to help him escape, promising a new passport for him. A trip to Istanbul with Farooq to collect new recruits and audiovisual equipment provides Parvaiz an opportunity to meet Aneeka and make his escape. But Aneeka is stopped at the airport in London and, as Farooq has discovered Parvaiz has tried to escape and is now determined to find and kill him, Parvaiz decides to put himself at the mercy of the British consulate, though his father had died in the custody of British allies. But the point is moot: Parvaiz is killed in a drive-by shooting as he approaches the building.
A media frenzy around the Istanbul shooting of the British-born jihadi ensues. Karamat Lone, who has ordered an investigation, publicly discloses that Parvaiz's sister, Aneeka, had seduced his own son in an (unsuccessful) attempt to win special consideration for her terrorist brother. Additionally, as Karamat Lone's policies as Home Secretary had
Characters
In regards to Karamat Lone, Shamsie stated that initially she felt the concept of a Briton of Pakistani descent becoming a Conservative Party Home Affairs Minister as something not plausible, but reconsidered when she saw the rise of
Style
Akin to a play's five acts,[10] the book is in five sections, each focusing on a different character's point of view,[11] told in free indirect discourse.[12] The novel is also set in five locations: London; Amherst, Massachusetts; Istanbul; Raqqa, Syria; and Karachi, Pakistan.[13]
Themes
Home Fire is a contemporary reimagining of the
Reception
The novel received widely favorable reviews. In The Guardian, Natalie Haynes said, "Shamsie’s prose is, as always, elegant and evocative. Home Fire pulls off a fine balancing act: it is a powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world, while tipping its hat to the same dilemma in the ancient one."[14] In The Washington Post, Katharine Weber said the novel "blazes with the kind of annihilating devastation that transcends grief."[6] Garner said the novel "may seem to wobble" in middle portions, "lurching shifts of tone as it moves between matters of the heart and of state," but strongly encouraged readers to stick Home Fire, as "builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century."[15]
Home Fire was longlisted as a candidate for the 2017
On 5 November 2019
References
- ^ Flood, Alison (6 June 2018), "Kamila Shamsie wins Women's prize for fiction for 'story of our times'" Archived 2019-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian.
- ^ Associated press (6 June 2018), "Kamila Shamsie's 'Home Fire' wins Women's Prize for Fiction" Archived 2018-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, The Washington Times.
- ^ "Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie: provocative work from a brave author". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^ Dutta, Amrita (6 August 2017). "'When ultra-nationalism is on the rise, it divides citizens into those whom the state should be proud of, and everyone else'". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on 16 August 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ "Interview: Kamila Shamsie talks about 'Home Fire', minorities and terrorism". The Jakarta Post. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^ a b Weber, Katharine (7 August 2017). "What is a sister's responsibility to her 'terrorist' brother?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ "HOME FIRE by Kamila Shamsie". Kirkus Reviews. 6 June 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ Abridger: Sara Davies; Readers: Lisa Zahra, Sanjeev Bhaskar; Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery (1 April 2019). "Home Fire: Episode 1". Home Fire. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
- ^ Shamsie, Kamila (3 May 2018). "True story: Kamila Shamsie on predicting the rise of Sajid Javid". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2021.
- ^ Chambers, Claire (5 August 2017). "'The ones we love are enemies of the state'". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
- S2CID 165900902.
- ^ Chambers, Claire (5 August 2017). "'The ones we love are enemies of the state'". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ a b Haynes, Natalie (10 August 2017). "Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie review – a contemporary reworking of Sophocles". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ a b Garner, Dwight (8 August 2017). "In 'Home Fire,' Lives Touched by Immigration, Jihad and Family Love". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ Beer, Tom (14 August 2017). "What to read this week". Newsday. Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
- ^ Images Staff (15 November 2018). "Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid shortlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature". Images. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^ "Announcing the 2018 Women’s Prize winner!" Archived 2019-04-01 at the Wayback Machine Women's Prize for Fiction
- ^ "Women's Prize for Fiction: Kamila Shamsie wins 2018 award for Home Fire", BBC News, 6 June 2018.
- The Telegraph.
- ^ "British Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie wins UK's most prestigious literary award for women", The Express Tribune, 7 June 2018.
- ^ "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 5 November 2019. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
Further reading
- Chambers, Claire. "Sound and Fury: Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire" (PDF). The Massachusetts Review: 202–219.