Pakistan's Kamila Shamsie bags UK's most prominent literary award

 

KARACHI: While books have recently — and surprisingly — become the talk of the town in Pakistan, Karachi-born author Kamila Shamsie won the international Women’s Prize for Fiction for her 2017 book Home Fire.

Marked as Shamsie's seventh work of prose, Home Fire follows British Muslim "Isma" and her family members, all of whom are dispersed around the world. The "suspenseful and heartbreaking" story, according to Penguin Random House publishers, is "of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences".

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

The prestigious award, worth £30,000 ($40,000), was bestowed upon the Pakistani author in a ceremony Wednesday, in London, as she topped five other competitors shortlisted for the prize.

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

Numerous well wishes and praise poured in for Shamsie from around the world.

Shamsie has bagged multiple awards and accolades, with Kartography, one of the novels she penned, receiving critical acclaim.