Home Fire: Antigone Retold

I have read many books in my life—most of them good, some of them bad, and very few of them truly stunning. Kamila Shamsie’s newest novel, Home Fire, turned my world inside out in a way I truly cherish.

Home Fire is a modern retelling of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, Antigone. It focuses on similar themes—fidelity to family, to ideals, and to the state, and which of these is the most important.

The book centers on three siblings who live in England. Isma is a scholar who put her dreams on hold to raise her younger twin siblings: beautiful, fierce Aneeka, and quiet, out-of-place Parvaiz. Children to a jihadist father, the relationship between Isma, Aneeka, and Parvaiz is complicated, fragile, and tense, especially as they try to fit their Muslim faith into a world reacting to the actions of ISIS.

Though much of Shamsie’s book deals with situations and events that are complex, it still holds flashes of lighthearted humor and romance. The relationships between the siblings and the people they meet throughout the book are as varied and startling as relationships are in real life. Even Aneeka and Parvaiz, twins, are depicted with a refreshingly real friendship—one deep and loving, but not always happy.

Shamsie’s characters, well thought-out, flawed and delightfully human, and their multi-faceted relationships with others, lend a depth of feeling, importance, and realism to her work that I find lacking in many books I read today. She approaches the intricate subject matter of her book firmly, but with grace.

Home Fire is a novel that deals with the situation and struggles of Muslims in a modern world, but it also address many other topics: loyalty to family, to personal belief, to one’s government—and loyalty to love. It’s a book that is thought-provoking, intricate, funny, and, most of all, breath-taking. In every page and every word, it lives up to being as wonderful a book as the Antigone quote across its first page promises it will be: “The ones we love…are enemies of the state.”

~K