Author Kamila Shamsie spoke to the Times ahead of her talk at the Preston Community Library on Tuesday evening.

Shamsie has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her seventh novel Home Fire, which tells the story of a British Muslim family’s link to Isis.

Part of the novel is set in Preston Road in Brent. “I wanted to tell the story of a young man who becomes radicalised in the most unlikely place. Preston Road has a great sense of community where all sorts of people live together and that seemed like the kind of place that it would happen,” said Shamsie.

The talk at Preston Community Library, which also features in the novel, is her first after her big win.

She added: “It feels right to do it here. I want the people in the neighbourhood to feel that I’ve done alright by them.”

Aware of the campaign to save Preston’s library, the author said: “There’s something civilised about having a library. The campaign represented everything that is sensible and honourable.”