Kamila Shamsie

Kamila Shamsie (; born 13 August 1973) is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire. Named on Granta magazine's list of 20 best young British writers, Shamsie has been described by The New Indian Express as "a novelist to reckon with and to look forward to." She also writes for publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect, and broadcasts on radio.

Early life and education Shamsie was born into a well-to-do family of intellectuals in Karachi, Pakistan. Her mother is journalist and editor Muneeza Shamsie, her great-aunt was writer Attia Hosain and she is the granddaughter of memoirist Jahanara Habibullah.

Shamsie was brought up in Karachi, where she attended Karachi Grammar School. and earned a BA in creative writing from Hamilton College,

Career Shamsie wrote her first novel, In the City by the Sea, while still in college, and it was published in 1998 when she was 25. It was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in the UK, Both Kartography and Shamsie's next novel, Broken Verses (2005), have won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan. and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. A God in Every Stone (2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize and for the Baileys Women's Prize For Fiction. According to Maya Jaggi's review in The Guardian: "Through its succession of seemingly disparate, acutely observed worlds, Burnt Shadows reveals the impact of shared histories, hinting at larger tragedies through individual loss." Shamsie's seventh novel, Home Fire, described by the BBC as a "powerful story of the complexities of love, family and state in wartime", was longlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize, shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and in 2018 won the Women's Prize for Fiction.

She is also the author of the non-fiction work Offence: The Muslim Case (Seagull Books, 2009). In 2009, Shamsie donated the short story "The Desert Torso" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project – four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the Air collection. She attended the 2011 Jaipur Literature Festival, where she spoke about her style of writing. She participated in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty-Six Books, with a piece based on a book of the King James Bible.

Shamsie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young British writers.

She has contributed to such international events as the Cleveland Humanities Festival and is a patron of the Manchester Literature Festival. In 2017, she joined the Manchester Centre for New Writing, where she is Professor of Creative Writing.

She delivered the 2018 Orwell Lecture at University College London, with the title "Unbecoming British: citizenship, migration and the transformation of rights into privileges".

In 2021, Shamsie was a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize, alongside Nell Stevens, Fred D'Aguiar and Johanna Thomas-Corr.

Personal life Shamsie states that she considers herself Muslim. She moved to London in 2007 and is now a dual national of the UK and Pakistan.

Awards and recognition

Recognition 1999: Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan, for In the City by the Sea 2002: Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan 2005: Patras Bokhari Award, for Broken Verses 2013: Recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women. 2013: Named on Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2019: Nelly Sachs Prize, in honour of her literary work (rescinded, no new winner nominated); however, the jury withdrew its decision to award the writer citing her support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A letter protesting the move was signed by hundreds of fellow writers in support of Shamsie.

Literary awards

Books In the City by the Sea (1998), Salt and Saffron (2000), Kartography (2002), Broken Verses (2005), Offence: The Muslim Case (2009), Burnt Shadows (2009), A God in Every Stone (2014), Home Fire (2017), Duckling: A Fairy Tale Revolution (2020), Best of Friends (2022),