Kamila Shamsie: Citizenship and Civil Rights

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

This chapter explores how contemporary novelist Kamila Shamsie adapts dramatic forms to stage ideological and ethical conflicts in her works, focusing on her acclaimed 2017 novel Home Fire in particular. Through a discussion of Home Fire’s thematic and formal reworking of Sophocles’ Antigone in the context of contemporary debates about citizenship and civil rights in the UK, the chapter investigates the ways in which Shamsie’s novelistic dramatisation of ideas engenders a critique of the politics of belonging in the post-9/11 age. In particular, the chapter focuses on the staging of competing ethical and political demands via interpersonal conflict, the use of multi-perspectival narration to critically refract contemporary concerns about citizenship and civil rights, and the representation of forms of mediation and public discourse in Shamsie’s novel.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe British Novel of Ideas
Subtitle of host publicationGeorge Eliot to Zadie Smith
EditorsRachel Potter, Matthew Taunton
PublisherCambridge University Press
Chapter24
ISBN (Electronic)9781009086745
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024

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