{"id":170265,"date":"2022-10-24T10:28:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T00:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=170265"},"modified":"2022-10-24T10:28:16","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T00:28:16","slug":"kamila-shamsie-tells-us-all-about-her-novel-best-of-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2022\/10\/24\/kamila-shamsie-tells-us-all-about-her-novel-best-of-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamila Shamsie tells us all about her novel: “Best Of Friends”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why Best of Friends? What was the kernel that inspired it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years ago my sister observed that the friends we make as adults are our friends because we have something in common with them, but our childhood friends are our friends because they\u2019ve always been our friends.  We were probably in our late 20s when she said it and it\u2019s felt increasingly true as the decades go on \u2014 I\u2019ve found myself returning again and again to that idea of childhood friends with whom you no longer have very much in common and yet the bond between you remains strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In making Maryam and Zahra 14 when we meet them, was there something in particular you wanted to explore about womanhood and friendship?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted us to meet them at a time when they\u2019ve left childhood behind but they aren\u2019t yet adults \u2014 so yes, it\u2019s that entry to womanhood. They\u2019re both becoming aware of their own sexuality, but in different ways \u2014 Maryam understands she is an object of desire and Zahra experiences desire. Men start to look at them differently, and that brings its own possibilities and complications. They\u2019re also old enough to be responsible for their actions and consequences \u2014 but also old enough to understand each other\u2019s failings and choose to forgive them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maryam is socialising with those in some of the highest places of political power.\u00a0 Zahra is at the top of her field as a human rights lawyer.\u00a0 Is it contemporary society you\u2019re aiming to shine a light on, or friendship, in giving them these different career paths?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t really view their friendship and the contemporary world as separate things.  Children might be able to some extent to cocoon themselves within a friendship but part of being adults is being in the world. And what your world looks like is very much a product of politics.  As a writer, I always want the very intimate stories of my characters to also reflect larger stories and conflicts \u2014 and I\u2019d hope that the novel makes people think both about friendship and the contemporary world.  When I write a novel all kinds of things that interest me go into it \u2014 it\u2019s ultimately down to the readers, rather than me, to decide in which corners they want to shine the light of their attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you had to recommend 5 books on the theme of friendship, what would they be and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of 5 books let me give you 8:
Elena Ferrante\u2019s Neapolitan quartet
Ali Smith\u2019s Seasonal quartet
\u00a0
The first is the more obvious one \u2014 most people who hear the phrase \u2018friendship novels\u2019 thinks first of Lenu and Lila, and for good reason. Ferrante\u2019s quartet is a brilliant look at female friendship in its ambivalent form \u2014 as much jealousy in there as love from a very early stage.\u00a0 Read it and then read Ali Smith\u2019s Seasonal Quartet which is teeming with friendships, many of them unexpected, all filled with lightness and joy.\u00a0 Both writers get it absolutely right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

— Best of Friends<\/a> by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury) is out now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamila Shamsie, bestselling author of Home Fire, tells us all about the inspiration behind her new novel, Best of Friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":170266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6677],"tags":[15278,954,1001,7824],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Blog-Banner-16.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170265"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170276,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170265\/revisions\/170276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}