ROUTINELY COMPARED to Salman Rushdie, Kamila Shamsie has been similarly embroiled in controversy. On October 10, 1999, Shamsie learned that her debut novel, In The City By The Sea, which explores childhood in the shadow of a military regime, had won the Pakistani Prime Minister's Award For Literary Achievement.
'It was really gratifying to get home recognition,' the 29-year-old recalls, sipping tea at the London offices of her current publisher, Bloomsbury. She is all gliding hand movements and impeccable elocution - every inch the progressive professional with a conscience. When, two days after hearing the news, General Pervez Musharraf's silent coup occurred, ousting Nawaz Sharif, Shamsie was not particularly bothered about whether the 100,000 rupees (HK$13,000) prize money would materialise, which it did eventually. She claims she cared more about the fate of her country.
The change turned out to be something of an improvement. Whereas Sharif was power-mad, at least Musharraf has 'said many things that sound intelligent and rational', she says airily, 'which is unusual in Pakistani politics. But the fact is you don't want an autocrat of any hue at the head of a government. Absolutely we need democracy again.'
A liberal democrat, Shamsie has written for Britain's Guardian newspaper on issues ranging from the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States to the threat of war between India and Pakistan. ('As long as the situation in Kashmir remains unresolved, we will continue to see border tensions and doomsday predictions,' Shamsie says.)
Politics permeates her novels too. Her latest, Kartography (Bloomsbury $155), which was nominated for Britain's Orange prize for fiction, maps the mood in her native Karachi during the 1990s when ethnic violence was so fierce the city became Asia's murder and violence capital. But Karachi is a vibrant city and, for much of the book, as in Shamsie's previous novel, Salt And Saffron, humour prevails over horror. Seemingly everyone is chattering playfully - usually at something salacious.
In one episode, Raheen, the female lead, asks her soulmate Karim if the chicken-pox scar on his stomach marks an erogenous zone and he replies that his whole body is an erogenous zone when she is around. She then asks what erogenous is an anagram of, to which he says 'Rouge nose' and she corrects him, saying 'Neo-rogues'.