Home Fire

Home Fire is the seventh novel by Kamila Shamsie, published in 2017. It reimagines Sophocles's play Antigone among British Muslims, and it follows the three Pasha siblings.

Isma has spent years looking after her twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz, since their mother died, and an invitation from a mentor in America allows her to resume a life she had set aside. She leaves London worrying about the sister who is headstrong and beautiful and about the brother whose own dream has taken him abroad, where he intends to prove himself against the dark inheritance of the jihadist father he never met. When Parvaiz resurfaces, Isma's worst fears are confirmed. Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives: the son of a powerful political figure, with a birthright of his own and a family history that will not leave him alone. The novel moves between London, America and the Middle East as the siblings' loyalties are tested.

Shamsie writes a contemporary story with the shape of a tragedy, and its interest is in the demands a family and a country can make on the same person at the same time.