Kamila Shamsie’s ‘Home Fire’ wins Women’s Prize for Fiction
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LONDON — Pakistani-British writer Kamila Shamsie has won the international Women’s Prize for Fiction with “Home Fire,” a novel about love, radicalism and conflicting loyalties in the post-9-11 era.
Shamsie was awarded the 30,000 pound ($40,000) prize at a ceremony in London Wednesday. Loosely based on Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy “Antigone,” her novel centres on three British Muslim siblings torn apart when one joins the Islamic State group.
Journalist Sarah Sands, who chaired the judging panel, called it a story of “identity, conflicting loyalties, love and politics” that “spoke for our times.”
Shamsie beat five other finalists. They included American writer Jesmyn Ward, who had been bookies’ favourite for her National Book Award-winning novel “Sing, Unburied, Sing.”
