LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
'Elegant and evocative ... A powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world' - Guardian
'There is high, high music in the air at the end of Home Fire' - New York Times
Isma is free.
After years spent raising her twin siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she is finally studying in America, resuming 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.
Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Handsome and privileged, he inhabits a London worlds away from theirs. As the son of a powerful British Muslim politician, Eamonn has his own birthright to live up to or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
A contemporary reimagining of Sophocles' Antigone, Home Fire is an urgent, fiercely compelling story of loyalties torn apart when love and politics collide confirming Kamila Shamsie as a master storyteller of our times.
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
Twins Aneeka and Parvaiz have been mostly raised by their sister Isma, who put her own life on hold when their mother died. When they finish school Isma resumes her studies and moves from London to the US to complete her PHD. As his twin also begins a new life at University, Parvaiz flounders, feeling he is being left behind by both his siblings. His loneliness and vulnerability are spotted by Farooq, who befriends the young man and slowly but surely converts him to the jihadist cause. The resulting tragedy, in fact a modern retelling of the Greek play Antigone, pits State, family, faith and the individual against each other in a chillingly timely tale.
