British-Pakistani author, Kamila Shamsie has been awarded UK’s most prestigious literary award for women, the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction for her 7th novel, Home Fire.
The story of Home Fire revolves around a girl named Aneeka who is a young Londoner that falls head over heels for a powerful British Muslim politician’s son.
She has hopes that the boy will help her save her missing brother who is drawn towards religious extremism.
Shamsie, who was raised in Karachi resides in London and was also presented with £30,000 prize money and statuette by the chair of judges Sarah Sands in a ceremony at Bedford Square Gardens this evening, reports The Telegraph.
Watch the moment that @kamilashamsie won the 2018 #WomensPrize for Fiction! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/7WB9zifD6O
— Women’s Prize (@WomensPrize) June 6, 2018
Sands had said that the judges were “forcibly struck by the quality of the prose” on the “dazzling shortlist”, which included The Idiot by Elif Batuman, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar, Sight by Jessie Greengrass, When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy, and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.
‘This shortlist is the best way of getting books into the hands of readers’
Here’s the wonderful 2018 #WomensPrize winner @kamilashamsie pic.twitter.com/u3oZt7vqAm— Women’s Prize (@WomensPrize) June 6, 2018
“In the end, we chose the book which we felt spoke for our times,” Sands said. “Home Fire is about identity, conflicting loyalties, love and politics. And it sustains mastery of its themes and its form. It is a remarkable book which we passionately recommend.”
Shamsie’s work has also been shortlisted for the annual prize.
Kudos to Kamila Shamsie for this marvelous accomplishment.
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