Home Fire (Shamsie) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—August 13, 1973
• Where—Karachi, Pakistan
• Education—B.A., Hamilton College; M.F.A., University of Massachusetts
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England


Kamila Naheed Shamsie is a Pakistani-British novelist, who is the author of seven books. Born in Karachi, Shamsie comes by writing naturally: she is the daughter of journalist and editor Muneeza Shamsie, the niece of Indian novelist Attia Hosain, and the granddaughter of author Begum Jahanara Habibullah, who wrote of her life under the British Rah.

Though raised in Karachi, Shamsie left her home country, heading to the U.S. for college. She earned a BA from Hamilton College, as well as an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, both degrees in creative writing. In 2007, Shamsie moved to London and now has dual citizenship with the UK and Pakistan. At first traveling back and forth between the two countries, she now lives primarily in London.

Writing and awards
Shamsie began her career while still in college, writing her first novel In The City by the Sea. The novel was published in 1998 when she was only 25, but even at that age her talent attracted attention. The debut was shortlisted for the UK's prestigious John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and in 1999, it received the Prime Minister's Award for Literature in Pakistan.

She followed her first novel with Salt and Saffron in 2000, a book which earned her still more recognition: she was named one of Orange's "21 Writers of the 21st century." Next came Kartography, shortlisted again for the John Llewellyn Rhys award. That novel, along with Shamsie's fourth, Broken Verses, won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan.

Novel six, Burnt Shadows won Shamsie the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the book was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. A God in Every Stone was shortlisted for two prizes — the Walter Scott Prize and Baileys Women's Prize. Home Fire, Shamsie's seventh novel, was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was included in Granta's list of 20 best young British writers. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved on 8/18/2017 .)