Reading Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire in the Indian Classroom

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, a novelistic adaptation of Sophocles’s Antigone, examines a complex relationship between identity and citizenship. The novel exposes the precarity of British Muslims in the post 9/11 West, as anti-immigrant and Islamophobic politics become increasingly strident. This essay argues that studying Home Fire in an Indian literature classroom can generate critical discussions about politics, identity, colonialism, and citizenship, opening up difficult socio-political questions in our own context. A novel about British Muslim lives resonates with the Indian reader because of its complex exploration of a minority community in a majoritarian society, and the clamorous political assertions of exclusion in recent times. By inviting postcolonial readings of classical literature, the novel encourages innovative pedagogical approaches and reading practices. The paper further emphasises the potential of the study of literature to critically interrogate received ideologies and discursive frameworks, enabling the possibility of ethical political intervention.