Kamila Shamsie was born and grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. Her mother, Muneeza Shamsie, is a well-known literary critic, and her great-aunt was the writer Attia Hosain. She gained a BA from Hamilton College in New York and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 2007, she moved to London and became a British Citizen in 2014. She has dual Pakistani and British nationality and spends time in both countries. She has published eight novels: In the City by the Sea (1998), Salt and Saffron (2000), Kartography (2002), Broken Verses (2005), Burnt Shadows (2009), A God in Every Stone (2014), Home Fire (2017), and Best of Friends (2022). She has also written short stories, including “Churail,” shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2023, non-fiction Offence: The Muslim Case (2009), and numerous journalistic articles.