Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire: A family tragedy rewritten

Abstract

Kamila Shamsie’s 2017 novel Home Fire is a reworking of Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone. The novel is based on the existential struggle of three siblings, Isma, Aneeka and Parvaiz, who are British-Pakistani citizens living in contemporary multi-cultural British society where diversities are deemed to be tolerated as long as concerned minority groups internalise “the concept of Britishness.” Along with the process of globalisation, especially in the last decades of the twentieth century, the number of immigrants from the South to the North increased rapidly. Coupled with this unwanted mobility, the chaotic aftermath of 9/11 strengthened the tendency of classifying Muslims living in the West under two distinct groups: the first group called “moderate Muslims” consists of those who act and live in accordance with Western paradigms; members of this group are seen as proper citizens, with access to all the regular privileges; the second group, however, includes those who do not deserve to be a national of the concerned country due to their extremist tendencies. Since Western security policies are built on eliminating extremists, conflict becomes inevitable whenever a presumably dissident voice is heard. In Shamsie’s Home Fire, having extremist ideas or involvement in radical activities turns not just the related person but all her/his kin into an “enemy of the State.” This essay dwells on the tragic outcomes of the erroneous surveillance policies targeting British Muslims as portrayed in Kamila Shamsie’s novel.