Acclaimed writer Kamila Shamsie is the Orange and Baileys Prize-shortlisted author of Burnt Shadows and A God in Every Stone. Her latest novel, Home Fire, is a contemporary reimagining of Sophocles’ Antigone. Set against the backdrop of contemporary London, it’s a compelling story of loyalties torn apart when love and politics collide.
Ali Smith’s books have won and been shortlisted for many awards, including the Bristol Festival of Ideas Best Book 2013 for Artful. Smith has long been interested in how classic tales and myths can influence today’s storytellers. Her novel Girl Meets Boy (2007) is a modern re-telling of Ovid’s Iphis and Iantheis and her love of Antigone led her to re-imagine the Greek play as a beautiful picture book for children.
Together they discuss how classic tales continue to feed modern fiction and storytellers.
Photo of Kamila Shamsie credit Zain Mustafa.
Kamila Shamsie and Ali Smith
Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven novels: In the City by the Sea and Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; Broken Verses; Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction); A God in Every Stone, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; and most recently, Home Fire. Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan’s Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013.
Ali Smith is the author of Free Love and Other Stories, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel World, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental, Girl Meets Boy, The First Person and Other Stories, There but for the, Artful, How to be Both, and Public Library and Other Stories. Hotel World and The Accidental were both shortlisted for the Booker and the Orange Prize. How to be Both won the Baileys Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Folio Prize.
