Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative

*FROM THE WOMEN-S PRIZE FOR FICTION-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF ENTER GHOST*

-Recognising the Stranger combines intellectual brilliance with moral clarity and profound resoluteness of purpose.- SALLY ROONEY

-A pitch-perfect example of how the novelist can get to the heart of the matter better than a million argumentative articles. Hammad shows us how the Palestinian struggle is the story of humanity itself, and asks us not to look away but to see ourselves.- MAX PORTER

‘Hammad-s writing burns with fierce intelligence, humane insight and righteous anger. For those at risk of despair, doubtful of the role literature has to play in times of crisis, it is a reminder of the radical potential of reading and the possibility of change.- OLIVIA SUDJIC

'Extraordinary and amazingly erudite. Hammad shows how art and especially literature can be much, much more revealing than political writing.' RASHID KHALIDI

Award-winning author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Lecture at Columbia University nine days before 7 October 2023. The text of Hammad-s seminal speech and her afterword written in the early weeks of 2024 together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what feels like a turning point in the narrative of human history.

Moving and erudite, Hammad writes from within the moment, giving voice to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Recognising the Stranger is a brilliant melding of literary and cultural analysis by one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and a foremost writer of fiction in the world today.