Isabella Hammad is the author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost. She has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and has been awarded the RSL Encore Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Plimpton Prize for Fiction, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Palestine Book Award and a Betty Trask Award. She has received fellowships from MacDowell and the Lannan Foundation. In 2023, she was included as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.
A gifted novelist... Enter Ghost is a moving and unforgettable
book
*SALLY ROONEY*
Feels completely different to anything else being written right now
in English, a heartfelt meditation on the relationship between art
and politics.
*Sunday Times*
Enter Ghost retells Hamlet for now, dropping its readers deep into
the contemporary tensions of the West Bank, asking crucial and
layered questions... Hammad is a calm and vital storyteller, a
writer of real rhythmic grace.
*Ali Smith, author of Autumn*
A powerful new novel... Hammad is a pretty flawless writer.
*The Times*
Beautifully written, poignant yet forceful, thoughtful and thought
provoking, but above all challenging the reader to respond to the
question facing the characters in the novel: how to live under
occupation while preserving your dignity and humanity? Hammad
answers this question through taking us into the hearts and minds
of the characters in the novel and through that into the heart and
mind of Palestine.
*Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran*
A thought-provoking and highly topical story about the complex
connections to be found in art, politics and family life.
*Sunday Times, *Books of the Year**
Enter Ghost is a masterful, deeply convincing portrait of the
all-too-real consequences of political theater - in both senses. A
moving and important novel that presses upon the urgent question of
how we ought to live in the midst of the rubble (and ongoing chaos)
of political crisis.
*Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift*
A magnificent, deeply imagined story... A thought-provoking,
engrossing story about the connections to be found in art, politics
and family life.
*Sunday Times*
Outstanding. Next-level. Aesthetically, intellectually, emotionally
and culturally satisfying... Isabella Hammad is incapable of
striking a false note. She immerses her heroine in volatile
territory with the accuracy, compassion and coolness of a surgical
knife sliding into a diseased body. The result is a stunning beauty
- an eye-opening, uplifting novel that grants its vulnerable cast
and their endeavors a rare and graceful dignity.
*Leila Aboulela, author of Minaret*
There could hardly be a more urgent time to understand the inner
lives of Palestinians, which are here depicted with poignance and
grace.
*Observer, *Books of the Year**
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