Powerful... Enter Ghost is a remarkable work by a novelist who writes about Palestinians with the same love and exasperation that one might feel towards one's family. Literary Review A soul-stirring and dramatic tale of a Palestinian family's exile and reconciliation... The layered text, rich in languages and literary references, dives deep into Sonia's consciousness, illustrating her hopes for what art can accomplish. This deeply human work will stay with readers. Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review* Palestinian actress Sonia Nasir finds herself immersed in an essential drama, with repercussions extending beyond the stages she is accustomed to, upon a visit to her older sister, Haneen, in Israel. The women’s paternal grandparents maintained their home in Haifa in 1948, giving the family a foothold both inside Israel and in the West Bank. Haneen and Sonia grew up in London, but their annual childhood summer visits provided them with familiarity and comfort in the Arab world and knowledge of life in the Israeli state. Sonia, who still lives in London, attempts to heal psychic wounds resulting from the unpleasant end of a love affair by paying a long-delayed visit to her sister. A politically aware academic, Haneen has been living in Haifa and working at a university in Tel Aviv. Sonia has not returned to Haifa since before the second intifada and must absorb the cultural, political, and familial changes that have occurred since. Almost immediately upon her arrival, she becomes involved in a production of Hamlet put on by a Palestinian theater company, directed by her sister’s energetic and passionate friend Mariam Mansour. The production is politically charged, employs classical Arabic, and challenges Sonia personally and professionally. When Sonia eventually agrees to undertake the role of Gertrude, she becomes immersed in macro and micro aspects of the production and develops varying degrees of closeness with the rest of the cast, Palestinian theater veterans all (except for the pop star slated for the lead role to attract attention to the production). A thorough and thoughtful exploration of the role of art in the political arena unfolds as Sonia and the troupe work through rehearsals toward performing a tragedy with contemporary resonance. Isabella Hammad is the award winning writer of The Parisian. Enter Ghost is her second novel and a contemporary story focusing upon Palestine - the daily lives of Palestinians under occupation.

KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong; Isabella Hammad is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Enter Ghost is available now from Grove Atlantic Press. HAMMAD: Right, which is a very cynical thing to feel. But, in some way, sometimes that can feel true. I don’t think it’s always true, but sometimes that can feel true. What are the ethics of representation? That question, what does it mean to represent suffering? Does it incite the reader or the watcher to action? Or is it—does something else happen?It’s funny because in the book, in your book, I wrote a note: just, “Sisters!” Exclamation point. You know, you’re so enmeshed as sisters and something like this can just start as a seed and it grows, grows, grows, grows. Becomes this… it snowballs.

HAMMAD: Yeah, which is part of her journey, essentially. Kind of the journey of Sonia is a different kind of acting, where it’s less about being an actor in a Western marketplace. Where it’s about her on her own. To being part of a troupe, sort of seeing herself as part of a collective in a more direct way. Which is about, you know, less, a kind of, individualistic, I guess. Magnificent, deeply imagined… a thought-provoking, engrossing story about the connections to be found in art, politics and family life.”— The Times (UK) Hammad writes, “We were enacting a Palestinian cliché: coming to see the house the family had lost. Although, as Mariam pointed out, my case did not quite fit that mould” (p.185). What does the sale of Sonia’s grandparents’ house bring up for her? WITMORE: That was Isabella Hammad in conversation with Barbara Bogaev. Enter Ghost is out now from Grove Atlantic Press. Haneen is technically not allowed to go visit her aunt and uncle in Ramallah because of her Israeli citizenship. Meanwhile, Mariam lives half the time in Ramallah so her son’s father can visit more often without having to get a permit to enter ’48. How does Sonia’s British passport impact her daily experience in Haifa and the West Bank, and her interpersonal relationships in each place?There are multiple layers to this book, as there are multiple types of ghosts being experienced. The ghosts of Hamlet are only the most o I also, at the time, was reading Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, and thinking about different kinds of theater and their operations. What is live theater? What is dead theater? And so on. HAMMAD: I actually… I mean, I think that many of Shakespeare’s plays are perfect for modern day Middle Eastern contexts, in a sense, because of the political dynamics. There are lots of potential resonances, more than, you might say, in Western democracies. I’ve been acting for twenty years,’ I said. Mariam looked at me serenely. My answer was incomplete, and she would wait for me to finish it. I didn’t know this woman. There was no need to answer truthfully. And it was true that there had been times in my life when I felt my work had saved me, transcending its function as a trade in a way that seemed, embarrassingly, to concern my soul. I didn’t know if that was what I liked about acting, but the occasional glimmers of something that looked like meaning had obviously played a role in keeping me going. There was no way I could say this aloud, although I suspected it was the sort of thing she was after. I could tell she had an American style ease with matters of the heart. Or maybe I should say a thespian’s ease. Something which, presumably, I myself had once possessed and lost somewhere along the way. Because that’s, kind of, one of the elements or kind of features of having a first-person narration is that you can start to feel a little trapped inside the eye. This was a valve, to get out of the eye and make Sonia just one of many, one of the troupe and to equalize all the voices in the room.

The story feels drawn out and the prose at times tries to be oblique and complex but succeeds only in unnecessarily over-elaborate.

BOGAEV: Yeah. Okay, let’s talk about ghosts. So, many of your characters, not just Sonia, are haunted by generations past and the ghosts of their ancestors. That’s inevitable given the history and the present-day reality of Palestine. A thorough and thoughtful exploration of the role of art in the political arena.”— Kirkus, starred review In looking at Palestinian existence – and [impulses like] cooperation, coordination, resistance and making beautiful things under the conditions in which they live – theatre made all sorts of things available to me,” Hammad continues. “I wanted the putting on of a play to be an opportunity, a cipher for other kinds of organising as well. One of the elements of the architecture of the Israeli regime is to fragment – and to solidify the fragmentation of – the Palestinian body politic.” Through Enter Ghost’s all-Palestinian heritage ensemble, Hammad explains that “you get a look at the social drama of these different people who have these different political and social experiences and legal statuses, and yet are unified by it.” That, also is another, you know… that the future generations might continue to do some haunting. And, that haunting itself might be, kind of, a political act, I think, is quite interesting. Ghosts always suggest something that needs to be done. Something that’s not complete, something that’s unfinished. When Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamletin the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude's lines in classical Arabic with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, all want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer and the warring intensifies, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.