Kamila Shamsie is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist whose best known award-winning novel Home Fire is a must read. Shamsie has also been named on Granta magazine’s list of 20 best young writers.
At a Palestine Festival of Literature event held in London in December 2023, Shamsie reflected on the Palestine-Israel crisis. “What does it mean to live in a nation that remains attached to a myth with racism at its heart”, she asked.
According to the novelist, “…over the years, the British Empire became increasingly adept at making it clear…that there was much advantage to be gained from setting aside race solidarity in order to ally itself with power.”
“It is not actually a historic irony that British politicians of Indian descent, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman should be among the most enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s genocide,” she said. “…it is just another example of how the lessons of empire continue…we are merely seeing a 21st Century iteration of that“.
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