Enter Ghost
Palestine

Enter Ghost

by Isabella Hammad

Women & Society Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Contemporary Fiction Fiction 2023

Summary

What does it mean to perform a tragedy when your own life is shaped by one? After a painful love affair, British-Palestinian actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her sister, reconnecting with a homeland she has long kept at a distance. There, she joins a daring theatrical production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the occupied West Bank, playing Gertrude alongside a company of Palestinian actors determined to bring the play to life despite political restrictions, personal rivalries, and the daily realities of occupation. As rehearsals progress, Sonia begins to reconsider her relationship with Palestine, her family, and her own identity. Weaving Shakespearean tragedy with contemporary Palestinian experience, Isabella Hammad’s powerful novel explores displacement, resistance, and the transformative potential of art when simply telling a story becomes an act of defiance.

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Country
Palestine
Asia
About the author
Isabella Hammad
Isabella Hammad

Isabella Hammad is a British-Palestinian novelist whose work explores history, displacement, identity, and the complexities of Palestinian life. Born in London to a Palestinian father and a British mother, she studied English literature at Oxford University before earning an MFA from New York University. Her debut novel, The Parisian (2019), follows a Palestinian man navigating the political and cultural transformations of the early twentieth century. The book won the Palestine Book Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, Enter Ghost (2023), received the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Hammad has also received prestigious literary fellowships and was named one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. Her writing has appeared in publications including The Paris Review and The New York Times.

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Details
Published
2023
Author
Isabella Hammad