Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi, where she grew up. She has a BA in Creative Writing from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. While at the University of Massachusetts, she wrote IN THE CITY BY THE SEA, published by Granta Books UK in 1998. This first novel was shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys Award in the UK, and Shamsie received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in Pakistan in 1999.

Her 2000 novel, SALT AND SAFFRON, led to Shamsie’s selection as one of Orange’s “21 Writers of the 21st Century.” With her third novel, KARTOGRAPHY, Shamsie was again shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys award in the UK. Both KARTOGRAPHY and her next novel, BROKEN VERSES, won the Patras Bokhari Award from the Academy of Letters in Pakistan. BURNT SHADOWS, Shamsie’s fifth novel, has been longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her books have been translated into a number of languages.

Shamsie is the daughter of literary critic and writer Muneeza Shamsie, the niece of celebrated Indian novelist Attia Hosain, and the granddaughter of the memoirist Begum Jahanara Habibullah. A reviewer and columnist, primarily for the Guardian, Shamsie has been a judge for several literary awards including The Orange Award for New Writing and The Guardian First Book Award. She also sits on the advisory board of the Index on Censorship.

For years Shamsie spent equal amounts of time in London and Karachi, while also occasionally teaching creative writing at Hamilton College in New York State. She now lives primarily in London.

Books by Kamila Shamsie

Best of Friends

by Kamila Shamsie - Fiction

Zahra and Maryam have been best friends since childhood in Karachi, even though --- or maybe because --- they are unlike in nearly every way. Yet they never speak of the differences in their backgrounds or their values, not even after the fateful night when a moment of adolescent impulse upends their plans for the future. Three decades later, Zahra and Maryam have grown into powerful women who have each cut a distinctive path through London. But when two troubling figures from their past resurface, they must finally confront their bedrock differences --- and find out if their friendship can survive.

Home Fire

by Kamila Shamsie - Fiction

Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can’t stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who’s disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma’s worst fears are confirmed. Then Eamonn enters the sisters’ lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to --- or defy. Suddenly, two families’ fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined.

Burnt Shadows

by Kamila Shamsie - Fiction

Broken Verses

by Kamila Shamsie