Kamila Shamsie is the author of several novels and has been a finalist for the Orange Prize, twice, and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. And she has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Her latest book, Home Fire, was recently long-listed for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. It’s a contemporary retelling of the Sophocles play, Antigone. The book and the play were written roughly 2500 years apart… yet the retelling is remarkably timely.
I recently spoke with Shamsie about her new novel, about political writing, and about language.
Here’s our conversation:
And if you listened to the commentary on-air, this is what you heard:
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie was published by Riverhead Books.
Marginalia was produced at KMUW Wichita.
Editor: Lu Anne Stephens
Engineer: Jon Cyphers
Producer: Beth Golay