Kamila Shamsie

ROOM NUMBER
2D41

CONTACT
+974 4457 8534

Email

Kamila Shamsie

GU-Q Writer-in-Residence

Kamila is an award-winning novelist celebrated for her contributions to contemporary literature. She has authored eight critically acclaimed novels, including Burnt Shadows, A God in Every Stone, and Home Fire, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and shortlisted for the Costa Prize. Her most recent work, Best of Friends, has received significant recognition, including the Karachi Literature Festival/Getz Fiction Award and a shortlist spot for the Indie Book Awards. Her novels have been translated into over thirty languages. Prior to joining GU-Q, she was a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. She also holds a lifetime honorary position as Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature in the UK.

During her residency, Kamila engages in a variety of enriching activities on our campus, including workshops, masterclasses, special events, and public lectures. She offers students creative writing sessions and hostspublic events, such as readings with renowned authors, informal discussions, and focused writing workshops designed to spark creativity and literary exploration.

Kamila’s presence adds significant depth to our academic discourse, and contributes to the broader cultural vibrancy of Qatar and beyond.


Qalam: Great Writers in Conversation with Kamila Shamsie

Led by our award-winning inaugural Writer-in-Residence, Kamila Shamsie, Qalam—meaning “pen” or “pencil” in Arabic—is an unparalleled opportunity to engage with some of the most celebrated voices in global literature.

Qalam examines how literature shapes our identities and how we engage with the world. At a time when the value of art and literature is often questioned, this series reaffirms storytelling’s vital role in helping us see ourselves in others and navigate the complexities that both unite and divide us. Qalam emphasizes that literature, at its best, does more than entertain—it challenges what we take for granted and offers new ways of understanding the human experience.

February 16, 2025

April 22, 2025

September 15, 2024

October 23, 2024

November 10, 2024


Other Engagements

Writing Palestine

Date: March 26, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM
Speaker: Kamila Shamsie

Join us for Writing Palestine, an evening of conversation with leading Palestinian writers and journalists. Organized in collaboration with the Palestine Festival of Literature (Palfest)—the cultural initiative that since 2008 has staged an international literary festival across historic Palestine—this discussion brings together three powerful voices who write against forgetting.

Mohammed El-Kurd is a Palestinian writer and organizer named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2021. His poetry collection Rifqa was shortlisted for the 2022 Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and his latest book, Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal, examines how Palestinian suffering is framed and exploited in Western discourse.

Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian novelist and journalist based in New York. Her novel The Book of Disappearance, longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025, depicts a world emptied of Palestinians in an instant, forcing those left behind to make sense of what remains.

Ahmed Alnaouq is a journalist from Gaza and the co-founder and director of “We Are Not Numbers,” a collective that trains the next generation of Palestinian writers to publish their stories in English. He is also a podcast host with Palestine Deep Dive.

Kamila Shamsie, our inaugural Writer-in-Residence, will lead the conversation.


Author Omar El Akkad Offers Warning and Hope About The Future

Acclaimed authors Omar El Akkad and Kamila Shamsie engaged the Qatar public in a dialogue on human-made catastrophes and the art of storytelling at a special event at Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), organized by the Program in Energy Humanities.  The discussion explored how narratives emerging from catastrophic events, such as El Akkad’s post-apocalyptic novel American War–which details a world shattered by a poorly managed energy transition–can bridge perspectives and inspire change.

November 18, 2024