Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Occasionally you know that one of the writers alive at the same time as you has written the book they were born to write … Home Fire has lit a light that’ll never go out; Shamsie’s version of Antigone reveals the ancient tragedy we’re living now
Guardian, Books of the Year – Ali Smith

A modern retelling of Antigone set among a family divided by politics, love, and radicalism. In fewer than 300 pages, it managed to do all the things I want novels to do – tell me something about the world, give me a tiny glimpse into the otherness of others, and, most of all, give me that ache of longing as I turned the last page and realised I would never meet these characters again
Observer, Best Books of the Year – Tahmima Anam

Why do some people become radicalised? It’s a question I’ve explored with experts on-air, but perhaps fiction can provide greater insight. Kamila Shamsie’s powerful novel Home Fire, inspired by Sophocles’s Antigone, did just that
Observer, Best Books of the Year – Martha Kearney

I very much enjoyed and admired Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, a politically and psychologically acute novel modelled on Sophocles’s Antigone – but reworked as the story of two British Muslim sisters and their jihadist brother
New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year’ – Emily Wilson

I enjoyed Kamila Shamsie’s Man Booker-longlisted Home Fire, which does a great job of bringing Sophocles’s Antigone into the world of Skype and Isis. Shamsie’s writing resonates on the human, political and lyrical plane but its topicality, tight plot and vivid characterisation also suggest a film script in the making
New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year’ – Melissa Benn

Seeking a template for these dark and strange days many works have modernised Greek dramas … A particularly classy example was Home Fire, in which Kamila Shamsie relocates Antigone by Sophocles to Western and Eastern capitals during the “war on terror”
New Statesman, Books of the Year 2017 – Mark Lawson

Anchors newsy debates in characters whose motives we would rather shrink from … Home Fire persuasively retold Antigone as the story of a teenage Londoner groomed to join Isil
Telegraph, Books of the Year – Anthony Cummins

The fiery new novel by Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire, which takes us from the suburban streets of Wembley to the killing grounds of Islamic State-ravaged Raqqa. Shamsie tackles issues of terrorism, political showboating and jihadi recruitment in London through the prism of a classic two-sides-of-the-track love story
Evening Standard, Books of the Year – George Osborne

Here comes Kamila Shamsie’s astonishing Home Fire, speaking ancient and brand-new truth to the world … A novel so breathtaking in the calm and witty and unshowy and inexorable telling of its story that, as I was reading it, I kept finding myself not sitting on the sofa any more reading the book but somehow standing in the kitchen wondering why on earth I’d gone through to the kitchen, what for? And realising it was that I’d kept having to put the book I was reading down and leave the room, and as soon as I realised where I was and where I wasn’t, I was off, back to the grip of the book again … The result is powerful, and in this making of a new home for the old story of the small girl who takes it upon herself to speak truth to power, she produces what I think you can truly call a contemporary classic
Ali Smith

Home Fire left me awestruck, shaken, on the edge of my chair, filled with admiration for her courage and ambition. Recommended reading for prime ministers and presidents everywhere
Peter Carey

Elegant and evocative … A powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world, tipping its hat to the same dilemma in the ancient one
Guardian

Two families’ fates are devastatingly entwined in this searing novel that asks: what sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
Irish Times

Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I’ve read in a novel this century … There is high, high music in the air at the end of Home Fire
New York Times