#Dublin Award shortlist 2019 Kamila Shamsie
- Author: Kamila Shamsie
- Title: Home Fire
- Published: 2017
- #DublinLiteraryAward2019
- List of Challenges 2019
- Monthly plan
- PREDICTION: this book is MY choice for Dublin Literary Award 2019!
Awards:
- Man Booker Prize Nominee for Longlist (2017)
- Costa Book Award Nominee for Novel (2017)
- Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) Nominee for International Book (2018)
- Women’s Prize for Fiction (2018)
- Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Fiction (2017)
Shortlist: 4/10 ( not wasting my time on 6 selected books, sorry)
UPDATE:
- Reservoir 13 – J. McGregor – READ – (…review Lisa)
- Home Fire – Kamila Shamsie – READ (immigrants…review Brona)
- Exit West – M. Hamid – NOT reading (review Lisa, Brona) (..enough of Middle-Eastern city)
- Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders – READ (review Brona)
- Midwinter Break – Bernard MacLaverty– READ (review Brona)
- Compass – M. Énard – NOT reading – Prix Goncourt 2015 (review Reese)
- Idaho – Emily Ruskovich – NOT reading (family epic, rugged Idaho)
- A Boy in Winter – Rachel Seiffert – NOT reading (WWII, review Lisa)
- History of Wolves – Emily Fridlund – NOT reading – (review Lisa)
- Conversations With Friends – S. Rooney NOT reading (…had enough of Rooney)
MY SHORTLIST …books I think should have been shortlisted 0/6
- Brother – David Chariandy – (Powerful, bold and timely, Canadian)
- Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – G. Honeyman – (review Reese)
- The Hate U Give – A. Thomas – (..must read this, NYT Bestseller YA novel))
- Tin Man – Sarah Winman – (review Lisa)
Quickscan:
- Home Fire is a contemporary
- re-imagining of the Greek tragedy Antigone
- …in 5 acts…locations.
- Setting: The novel is set in five locations:
- London; Amherst, Massachusetts,
- Istanbul, Raqqa, Syria and Karachi, Pakistan
- Structure: The book is divided into 5 parts.
- Characters: In each part one character
- Isma – elder sister, raised twins when their mother died
- Eamonn – son Home Secretary, lover Aneeka
- Parvaiz – twin, jihadi
- Aneeka – twin, law student
- Karamat Lone – Home Secretary
- speaks to the reader
- …we are the chorus in a Greek play!
- Theme: The theme is resistance.
- Aneeka refuses to obey the law
- Aneeka defies British Home Secretary Karamat Lone
- …who stated that a jihadi may not return to UK …dead or alive.
- Climax: Aneeka keeps vigil by her brother’s coffin in public park – protest!
- Symbol: soil
- With a dust mask on her face, dark hair a cascade of mud
- onlookers hear a deep howl…a howl Aneeka
- calls up from the earth through her into the office of the Home Secretary
- …watching on the TV
- She scrapes some dirt with her fingernails
- to properly bury her brother.
- Aneeka choose her dignity and
- …that of her brother above her happiness.
Last thoughts:
- The novel tries to stay close to the original plot of Antigone.
- Shamsie has been able to include the
- theme of civil disobedience
- into a modern setting with
- …explosive political (jihad, ISIS) undertones.
- The book has been reviewed by
- …so many readers it is impossible
- to add more praise than it has accrued.
- Strong point: IMO Act 3 Parvaiz was the most impressive.
- Shamsie revealed why how Parvaiz was groomed to
- leave his home to answer the call of Jihad.
- Two years after publication
- …this book is still very confronting.
- The so-called caliphate of Islamic State, also known as Isis,
- in Iraq and Syria is defeated but remains a threat.
- Countries must engage in a delicate balancing act between
- legal obligations and political correctness.
- Strong point: thought provoking
- …I had to think long and hard….
- how families must feel
- losing their children to the Islamic state.
- #Devastated
7 Comments
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Woo hoo, big call Nancy. Good for you.
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Shamsie should have won the Booker Prize 2017….this
book was 100 x better than Lincoln in the Bardo!
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I agree with you about the grooming. A shocking chapter, but it made me see how it could happen.
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My reaction exactly…
You hear about grooming but now Shamsie put it on paper.
I’m sure her version is the grooming-light…it can get pretty gruesome
training zealots!
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I guess it’s how they get them used to brutality…
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