Kamila Shamsie

Early life and education

Shamsie was born into a well-to-do family of intellectuals in Karachi, Pakistan. Her mother is journalist and editor Muneeza Shamsie, her great-aunt was writer Attia Hosain and she is the granddaughter of memoirist Jahanara Habibullah.

Shamsie was brought up in Karachi, where she attended Karachi Grammar School. She went to the US as a college exchange student, and earned a BA in creative writing from Hamilton College, and an MFA from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she was influenced by the Kashmiri poet Agha Shahid Ali.

Career

Shamsie wrote her first novel, In the City by the Sea, while still in college, and it was published in 1998 when she was 25. It was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in the UK, Both Kartography and Shamsie's next novel, Broken Verses (2005), have won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan.

Shamsie's fifth novel, Burnt Shadows (2009), was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. A God in Every Stone (2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Walter Scott Prize and for the Baileys Women's Prize For Fiction. According to Maya Jaggi's review in The Guardian: "Through its succession of seemingly disparate, acutely observed worlds, Burnt Shadows reveals the impact of shared histories, hinting at larger tragedies through individual loss." Shamsie's seventh novel, Home Fire, described by the BBC as a "powerful story of the complexities of love, family and state in wartime", was longlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize, shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and in 2018 won the Women's Prize for Fiction.

She is also the author of the non-fiction work Offence: The Muslim Case (Seagull Books, 2009). In 2009, Shamsie donated the short story "The Desert Torso" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project – four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the Air collection. She attended the 2011 Jaipur Literature Festival, where she spoke about her style of writing. She participated in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty-Six Books, with a piece based on a book of the King James Bible.

Shamsie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young British writers.

She has contributed to such international events as the Cleveland Humanities Festival and the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Trinidad, in 2016, and is a patron of the Manchester Literature Festival. In 2017, she joined the Manchester Centre for New Writing, where she is Professor of Creative Writing.

She delivered the 2018 Orwell Lecture at University College London, with the title "Unbecoming British: citizenship, migration and the transformation of rights into privileges".

In 2021, Shamsie was a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize, alongside Nell Stevens, Fred D'Aguiar and Johanna Thomas-Corr.

Personal life

Shamsie states that she considers herself Muslim. She moved to London in 2007 and is now a dual national of the UK and Pakistan.

In 2012, she joined the latest incarnation of the Authors XI cricket team, despite never having played the game before. She contributed a chapter, "The Women's XI", to the book The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon (2013), collectively written by members of the team to chronicle their first season together.

Awards and recognition

Recognition

• 1999: Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan, for In the City by the Sea
• 2002: Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan
• 2005: Patras Bokhari Award, for Broken Verses
• 2013: Recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women.
• 2013: Named on Granta Best of Young British Novelists
• 2019: Nelly Sachs Prize, in honour of her literary work (rescinded, no new winner nominated); however, the jury withdrew its decision to award the writer citing her support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A letter protesting the move was signed by hundreds of fellow writers in support of Shamsie.

Literary awards

Books

• In the City by the Sea (1998),
• Salt and Saffron (2000),
• Kartography (2002),
• Broken Verses (2005),
• Offence: The Muslim Case (2009),
• Burnt Shadows (2009),
• A God in Every Stone (2014),
• Home Fire (2017),
• Duckling: A Fairy Tale Revolution (2020),
• Best of Friends (2022),

References

References

1. Jaclyn. (8 March 2013). "Kamila Shamsie: Following in her father's footsteps". South Asian Diaspora.
2. Shamsie, Kamila. (4 March 2014). "Kamila Shamsie on applying for British Citizenship: 'I never felt safe'". [[The Guardian]].
3. (23 March 2014). "In the City of Storytellers". The New Indian Express.
4. "Kamila Shamsie". [[British Council]] {{!}} Literature.
5. Major, Nick. (2018-08-18). "THE SRB INTERVIEW: Kamila Shamsie".
6. Shamsie, Kamila. (1 May 2009). "A long, loving literary line: Kamila Shamsie on the three generations of women writers in her family". The Guardian.
7. Long, Karen R.. (12 April 2016). "At The Cleveland Humanities Festival, Author Kamila Shamsie Asks 'Why Weep for Stones?'". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
8. Agha, Saira. (26 August 2016). "Pride of Pakistan:Kamila Shamsie". Daily Times.
9. Hanman, Natalie. (2014-04-11). "Kamila Shamsie: 'Where is the American writer writing about America in Pakistan? There is a deep lack of reckoning'". The Guardian.
10. (14 July 2003). "Kartography".
11. "Kamila Shamsie". Bloomsbury.
12. Burnt Shadows"], Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
13. (24 March 2015). "2015 Shortlist announced". Walter Scott Prize.
14. Driscoll, Brogan. (2015-04-13). "Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist Announced".
15. Jaggi, Maya. (7 March 2009). "When worlds collide {{!}} Kamila Shamsie's epic new novel will challenge and enlighten its readers, writes Maya Jaggi". The Guardian.
16. (1 August 2017). "Ten books to read in August". BBC {{!}} Culture.
17. Beer, Tom. (14 August 2017). "What to read this week". Newsday.
18. "2019 Shortlist". Dublin Literary Prize.
19. (19 April 2019). "Kamila Shamsie and Mohsin Hamid shortlisted for Dublin Literary Award 2019".
20. Flood, Alison (6 June 2018), [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/06/kamila-shamsie-wins-womens-prize-for-fiction-for-story-of-our-times "Kamila Shamsie wins Women's prize for fiction for 'story of our times'"], ''The Guardian''.
21. (6 June 2018). "Kamila Shamsie Wins 2018 Women's Prize For Fiction".
22. (20 May 2009). "Kamila Shamsie: Islam and offence".
23. Shamsie, Kamila, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/oxtales-the-desert-torso-1727614.html "The Desert Torso"] – A short story from the OX-Tales series.
24. [http://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/sixtysix/writers/bio/kamila-shamsie Kamila Shamsie - "The Letter in response to Philemon"] {{webarchive. link. (13 May 2014 , ''Sixty-Six Books'', Bush Theatre.)
25. [http://www.granta.com/Archive/123 Best of Young British Novelists 4], ''Granta'' 123.
26. "Kamila Shamsie, Pakistani-British Author at Bocas 2016". British Council {{!}} Caribbean.
27. Shamsie, Kamila. (28 April 2016). "Kamila Shamsie: Bocas and Bogota - Part 1". British Council {{!.
28. "About Us". Manchester Literature Festival (MLF).
29. "Kamila Shamsie {{!}} Professor of Creative Writing". Manchester Centre for new Writing.
30. (13 November 2018). "Unbecoming British {{!}} The Orwell Lecture 2018 with Kamila Shamsie". The Orwell Foundation.
31. Chandler, Mark. (20 January 2021). "Stevens, D'Aguiar and Shamsie to judge 2021 Goldsmiths Prize".
32. Nicol, Patricia. (2017-09-20). "Author of the moment Kamila Shamsie on what it is to be a Muslim today". Evening Standard.
33. Authors Cricket Club. (2013). "The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon". Bloomsbury.
34. (2013-10-20). "100 Women: Who took part?". BBC News.
35. "Author Kamila Shamsie stripped of literary award over BDS support".
36. Flood, Allison. (19 September 2019). "Kamila Shamsie's book award withdrawn over her part in Israel boycott". The Guardian.
37. (7 October 2019). "Kamila Shamsie on being stripped of writers' award over Israel boycott".
38. Flood, Alison. (23 September 2019). "Hundreds of authors protest after Kamila Shamsie's book award is revoked". The Guardian.
39. "Burnt Shadows".
40. "Burnt Shadows".
41. "The Morning News Tournament of Books - Presented by Field Notes".
42. (3 September 2019). "Home Fire – International DUBLIN Literary Award".
43. "A God in Every Stone".
44. (2014-11-28). "Five Novels make it to the Shortlist of the DSC Prize 2015".
45. Salt, Rebecca. (2015-03-24). "2015 Shortlist announced -".
46. Flood, Alison. (2017-11-21). "Helen Dunmore's final poems lead shortlists for 2017 Costa prizes". The Guardian.
47. Beer, Tom. (August 14, 2017). "What to read this week". Newsday.
48. Reading, Better. (2018-04-18). "Books of the Year: Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs) 2018 Announced!".
49. locusmag. (2018-11-14). "2018 BAMB Readers Awards Winners".
50. Images Staff. (2018-11-15). "Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid shortlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature". Images.
51. [https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/reading-room/2018-prize/announcing-2018-womens-prize-winner "Announcing the 2018 Women’s Prize winner!"] {{Webarchive. link. (2019-04-01 ''Women's Prize for Fiction'')
52. "Europese Literatuurprijs - Longlist 2019".
53. Glyer, Mike. (2019-04-04). "International Dublin Literary Award 2019 Shortlist".