Description
WINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION – LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE – FINALIST FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD*
From acclaimed Pakistani British author Kamila Shamsie comes a powerful, suspenseful novel about family, identity, loyalty, and the devastating human cost of political power. A contemporary reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone, Home Fire brings an ancient tragedy into urgent conversation with the lives of British Muslim families today.
Isma has spent years putting her own hopes aside to care for her younger twin siblings after their mother’s death. Now, at last, she has an opportunity to travel to America and resume the academic dream she long postponed. But freedom is complicated. Even from across the Atlantic, she cannot stop worrying about her sister Aneeka, fierce and determined in London, or her brother Parvaiz, who has disappeared while searching for connection, purpose, and answers about the father he barely knew.
Then Eamonn enters Aneeka’s life. Charismatic and privileged, he is the son of a prominent British Muslim politician—a young man shaped by a very different kind of expectation. What begins as an unexpected relationship soon draws two families into a conflict where private grief meets public scrutiny, and where love may become both a refuge and a weapon.
Told through shifting perspectives, Home Fire is a deeply moving story of siblings bound by love, grief, and responsibility. Shamsie examines the pressures placed on Muslim communities, the cruelty of suspicion and state power, and the impossible choices people face when the demands of family and country pull in opposite directions.
Home Fire is a searing, beautifully constructed novel for readers drawn to literary fiction that explores diaspora, immigration, religion, political belonging, family loyalty, and the moral complexity behind the headlines.




