Home Fire

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. What is a tragedy in literature? What are its main characteristics?

Teaching Suggestion: Home Fire is an adaptation of the tragic play Antigone, modeling much of the format and structure of its five acts. Consider helping students understand the genre of tragedy so they will be better able to identify its conventions in the novel by accessing or sharing these or similar resources:

• “Antigone in Pakistan: Home Fire, by Kamila Shamsie” is an academic article by Peter Krause from the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics analyzing Shamsie’s adaptation of the Greek play.
• This resource explores the tragic structure dating back to ancient Greece.
• This brief overview presents the history of tragedy and includes some interesting etymological insights to its origins, characteristics, and terminology.

2. Let’s think about context. In the United States, life changed in many ways after 9/11. How do you think this might have been similar or different in the United Kingdom?

Teaching Suggestion: Students may not realize that 9/11’s effects echoed across countries around the world, and so this question provides an opportunity to introduce the tragedy’s global effects. For those who realize its global significance, this question can also help them think critically about differences between the United States and the United Kingdom. Moreover, this question can help illuminate how Shamsie’s characters experience life differently as British Muslims.

• “What Were the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks?” is an informational page that discusses Britain’s connections to 9/11 from the Imperial War Museum, a British institution.
• This article discusses Gen Z British Muslim citizens' reflections on their experience of post-9/11 Britain.
• “Welcome to the Umma: The British State and Its Muslim Citizens Since 9/11” is an academic article from Cooperation and Conflict by Toby Archer. (Requires subscription to read beyond Abstract)

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the novel.

What does the word home mean to you? What might it feel like to be away from home?

Teaching Suggestion: Home in this novel refers to many things. Isma separates herself from her siblings by going to America. Parvaiz leaves home and is killed, and Karamat prevents his body from being returned home. Each of the British Muslim characters must wrestle with the conflict between what they perceive as home and what the rest of the world thinks. Consider encouraging students to ponder the nuances of home and what it might feel like to long to return to it.

Differentiation Suggestion: For visual learners, an alternative approach could be to have them draw a representation of home that demonstrates their home both physically and what it means to them figuratively.