Antigone of Pakistan: narrative violence and the impossibility of homecoming

Award-winning author Kamila Shamsie will deliver Princeton’s 2022 Robert Fagles Lecture for Classics in conjunction with the Department of English’s 17th Annual Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture. Shamsie is the author of several novels including Broken Verses (2005), Burnt Shadows (2009) and Home Fire (2017), which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Home Fire won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018.

Shamsie will deliver a lecture titled ‘Antigone of Pakistan: Narrative Violence and the Impossibility of Homecoming’ at an event hosted by the Classics and English Departments. Participants from the Princeton community will be able to attend in person or online.

Shamsie’s first novel, In the City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and her second, Salt and Saffron, won her a place on Orange’s list of ’21 Writers for the 21st Century’. Shamsie, who lives between the UK and Pakistan, received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature in Pakistan in 1999. Her work explores interpersonal relationships in the context of ethnic violence and inter-racial suspicion.

The recently established Fagles Lecture invites a distinguished writer or artist to Princeton, whose work engages with the Classics. During the visit, which will take place virtually this year, the guest gives a lecture and a class or reading, as well as meeting students and engaging in a public conversation with faculty members about their work.