Kamila Shamsie

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Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writer

Kamila Shamsie (Template:Langx; born 13 August 1973)<ref name="sad">Template:Cite journal</ref> is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire (2017).<ref name="guardian">Template:Cite news</ref> 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."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She also writes for publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect, and broadcasts on radio.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Shamsie was brought up in Karachi, where she attended Karachi Grammar School.<ref name="sad"/> She went to the US as a college exchange student,<ref name="Cleveland Humanities Festival">Template:Cite web</ref> and earned a BA in creative writing from Hamilton College,<ref name="sad"/> and an MFA from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,<ref name="sad"/> where she was influenced by the Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali.<ref name=Agha>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in the UK,<ref name=Bloomsbury/> and Shamsie received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan in 1999.<ref name=Agha/> Her second novel, Salt and Saffron, followed in 2000, after which she was selected as one of Orange's 21 Writers of the 21st century.<ref name=Agha/> Her third novel, Kartography (2002), received widespread critical acclaim and was also shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in the UK.<ref name=Bloomsbury/> According to the review in Publishers Weekly: "Shamsie's cerebral, playful style sets her apart from most of her fellow subcontinental writers. Something of a cross between Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie, she deserves a larger readership in the U.S."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Both Kartography and Shamsie's next novel, Broken Verses (2005), have won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan.<ref name=Agha/>

Shamsie's fifth novel, Burnt Shadows (2009), was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction<ref name=Bloomsbury>Template:Cite web</ref> and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction.<ref name=AnisfieldWolf>"Kamila Shamsie | Burnt Shadows", Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.</ref> A God in Every Stone (2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and for the Baileys Women's Prize For Fiction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Shamsie's seventh novel, Home Fire, described by the BBC as a "powerful story of the complexities of love, family and state in wartime",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was longlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in 2018 won the Women's Prize for Fiction.<ref>Flood, Alison (6 June 2018), "Kamila Shamsie wins Women's prize for fiction for 'story of our times'", The Guardian.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She is also the author of the non-fiction work Offence: The Muslim Case (Seagull Books, 2009).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Shamsie, Kamila, "The Desert Torso" – A short story from the OX-Tales series.</ref> 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.<ref>Kamila Shamsie - "The Letter in response to Philemon" Template:Webarchive, Sixty-Six Books, Bush Theatre.</ref>

Shamsie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.<ref name=Bloomsbury/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young British writers.<ref>Best of Young British Novelists 4, Granta 123.</ref>

She has contributed to such international events as the Cleveland Humanities Festival<ref name="Cleveland Humanities Festival" /> and the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, in 2016,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and is a patron of the Manchester Literature Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2017, she joined the Manchester Centre for New Writing, where she is Professor of Creative Writing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She delivered the 2018 Orwell Lecture at University College London, with the title "Unbecoming British: citizenship, migration and the transformation of rights into privileges".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2021, Shamsie was a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize, alongside Nell Stevens, Fred D'Aguiar and Johanna Thomas-Corr.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Personal life

Shamsie states that she considers herself Muslim.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She moved to London in 2007 and is now a dual national of the UK and Pakistan.<ref name="guardian"/>

In 2012, she joined the latest incarnation of the Authors XI cricket team, despite never having played the game before. She contributed a chapter, "The Women's XI", to the book The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon (2013), collectively written by members of the team to chronicle their first season together.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards and recognition

Recognition

Literary awards

Year Work Award Category Result Ref.
2009 Burnt Shadows Orange Prize for Fiction — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2010 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Fiction Template:Won <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Morning News Tournament of Books — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2011 International Dublin Literary Award — Template:Nom <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2015 A God in Every Stone Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Walter Scott Prize — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2017 Home Fire Costa Book Awards Novel Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Man Booker Prize — Template:Nom <ref name=":3">Template:Cite news</ref>
2018 Australian Book Industry Awards International Book Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards Fiction Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature — Template:Sho <ref name=":4">Template:Cite news</ref>
Women's Prize for Fiction — Template:Won <ref name=":5">"Announcing the 2018 Women’s Prize winner!" Template:Webarchive Women's Prize for Fiction</ref>
2019 Europese Literatuurprijs — Template:Nom <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
International Dublin Literary Award — Template:Sho <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Books

See also

References

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Further reading

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