A 21st century Sophocles, and she’s a woman!

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love

Sophocles

I could not be more delighted when I read last week that Kamila Shamsie had won the Women's prize for fiction for her wonderful book, Home Fire!

Kamila, who grew up in Karachi but now lives in London, beat a shortlist that included US author Jesmyn Ward’s novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, for which she won the National Book Award, and Imogen Hermes Gowar’s debut, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock – great company indeed.

What delights me more than anything is the fact that in the 23 years of the prize, Kamila Shamsie is only the fourth woman of colour to win the award and the first since 2007. What’s even more interesting is that the three previous winners have gone on to be three of the top four biggest selling female writers on the planet, I’d be thrilled to see Kamila go on to join them!

But what of Home Fire? Home Fire begins from the perspective of one of the women from the story Isma is about to miss her flight to America where she has a place to do a PhD in sociology at Amherst. She’s been detained by immigration in the UK who search and interrogate her. “He wanted to know her thoughts on Shias, homosexuals, the Queen, democracy, the Great British Bake Off, the invasion of Iraq, Israel, suicide bombers, dating websites.” Eventually she’s allowed to leave but not before she’s missed her flight.

Eventually Isma arrives in Massachusetts where she meets Eamonn Lone, son of the British politician Karamat Lone. Isma overheard her grandmother telling someone of the cruelty he’d shown their family when he could’ve acted otherwise. However, Isma doesn’t reveal to Eamonn that she actually knows who he is, (she’d seen a photograph in a friends house years earlier), and a relationship begins to develop between them.

Isma’s family situation is complicated. Her mother and grandmother died within a year, leaving her to parent her twelve-year-old twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz. Aneeka is at home in London, attending college. Parvaiz has left, occasionally letting Aneeka know via Skype messages that he’s okay.

Kamila intertwines the two families in order to explore relationships, love and loyalty. Through the range of characters, she creates a complex view of what it means to be a Muslim, exploring different perspectives within Muslim communities. This is at its most stark with Karamat Lone and Aneeka.

Lone is known as Lone Wolf due to his championing by the tabloids who see him “as a lone crusader taking on the backwardness of British Muslims.” Not long after his appointment as Home Secretary, he returns to the secondary school he attended in Bradford to give a speech.

“You are, we are, British. Britain accepts this. So do most of you. But for those of you who are in some doubt about it, let me say this: don’t set yourselves apart in the way you dress, the way you think, the outdated codes of behaviour you cling to, the ideologies to which you attach your loyalties. Because if you do, you will be treated differently – not because of racism, though that does still exist, but because you insist on your difference from everyone else in this multi-ethnic, multitudinous United Kingdom of ours. And look at all you miss out on because of it.” Powerful stuff, it’s been described as a story of our times, this is why!

Aneeka wears the hijab, prays and is teetotal. She’s also about to enter Lone’s life and have a profound effect.

Home Fire is a retelling of the Greek tragedy Antigone. While a number of recent retellings of Greek and Shakespearean plays have fallen short, Kamila pulls this one off with contemporary style and honesty. The novel uses the key themes and follows the structure of the source play but its characters, settings and ideas are contemporary and highly relevant. As the story moves from character to character – Isma, Eamonn, Parvaiz, Anneka, Karamat – the sense of urgency builds. Home Fire is a compelling, tightly crafted novel, it’s one of those I wish I’d saved to go on holiday, I’m sure I’d have read it in a few hours, it really does draw you in!