Kamila Shamsie bags UK’s most prestigious literary award for women

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British-Pakistani author Kamila Shamsie wins the International Women’s Prize for Fiction with her seventh novel, Home Fire that was published last year.

 

Home Fire follows the story of British Muslim Isma, who is finally liberated from responsibility. Her sister Aneeka is a Londoner who falls in love with the son of a powerful British Muslim politician, which she hopes to use in order to save her missing twin brother who is drawn towards religious extremism.

It deals with the linkages between a Pakistani family, their bonds tightening and loosening, their fears and long-lost hopes, as well as terrorism.

Shamsie, 44, who was born in Karachi, but now lives in London was presented with the award worth £30,000 ($40,000) on Wednesday.

According to Sarah Sands, a journalist who chaired the panel, Home Fire is about “identity, conflicting loyalties, love, and politics”, the Washington Post reported.

Shamsie’s work has been shortlisted for the annual prize, which is open to English-language fiction by women from around the world, twice before.

As Shamsie becomes the first Pakistani woman to bag this award, love from across the globe was pouring in for the author on social media: