Los desterrados

Overview

Isma is finally free: after years taking care of her twin brothers since her mother's death, her dream of studying in the United States has come true. But she can't stop worrying about her sister Aneeka, as beautiful as she is stubborn; her brother Parvaiz, who has made her worst nightmare come true and left London to join ISIS; and her father, an infamous jihadist. Then Eamonn, the privileged son of a powerful British politician, appears in her life, and soon the fates of both families becomes inextricably, terribly linked. Home Fire deals with topical themes of civil disobedience, loyalty, and legality in its quest to respond to the question, What would you be willing to sacrifice for love?

Reviews

"Ingenious… Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." —The New York Times, on the English-language edition

"[U]rgent and explosive … near perfect ... a difficult book to put down." —NPR, on the English-language edition  

"[A] haunting novel, full of dazzling moments and not a few surprising turns...Home Fire blazes with the kind of annihilating devastation that transcends grief." —Washington Post, on the English-language edition

"Achingly good...[and] shrewdly subversive." —The New York Times Book Review, on the English-language edition

Author Biography

Kamila Shamsie is a British author. She is a member of the Royal Society of Literature and appears on the Granta list for the Best of Young British Novelists. Her novel Home Fire was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017.