Blog written by Sally
Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire is an extraordinary contemporary novel about English Muslim PhD student Isma and her younger siblings, 19 year old twins Aneeka and Parvaiz. The family’s history, community and their experience as Muslims living in London is fascinating. Religion, politics, family, love, and violence are central to the story that follows. It is harrowing to read the grooming of Parvaiz to join ISIS. Anneke’s passionate affair with Eamonn and his fractured relationship with his father are engagingly told and unsettling. Based on Sophocles’ Antigone, the ending is truly tragic.
We all liked this book. We admired Shamsie’s exquisite story telling, and appreciated reading a Muslim-told story.
The words we chose to describe the book were: thought provoking, topical, intelligent, insightful and sad. Brave, ambitious and cleverly structured.
We gave it an average rating of 8.5
BBC podcast with Kamila Shamsie talking about Home fire and Greek tragedies
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/books-and-authors/id331296649?mt=2&i=1000391510769
Our next meeting will be at Robyn's on Oct 24 Wednesday and we will be discussing Unbreakable by Jelena Dokic.
