> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 26 September 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529952667
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

Recognising the Stranger

On Palestine and Narrative




An outstanding and moving essay on the Palestinian struggle, Edward Said and the power of 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, shedding light on 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.

  • Published: 26 September 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529952667
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Isabella Hammad

Isabella Hammad was born in London. She won the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and a 2019 O. Henry Prize , and is a 2019 National Book Award "5 under 35" Honoree. The Parisian is her first novel.

Also by Isabella Hammad

See all

Praise for Recognising the Stranger

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

Rashid Khalidi

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

Recognising the Stranger combines intellectual brilliance with moral clarity and profound resoluteness of purpose. This is a book that calls us to witness our place in history. Isabella Hammad deserves our thanks for sharing it with the world

Sally Rooney

Thought-provoking and timely, this lecture celebrates Said's intellectual courage and enduring relevance while highlighting the cruelty in which Palestinians continue to live. Combining both her literary skill and acute power of observation, Hammad weaves together a diagnostic and powerful essay which will undoubtedly be appreciated for years to come

Diana Buttu

Animated by an extraordinary faith in the power of art to return us to the human in ourselves and each other, Recognising the Stranger is a profound exploration of myth, meaning, the novel, the Palestinian struggle and the work of Edward W. Said. The insights she finds into the present moment feel at once prescient and eternal and the result left me changed

Alexander Chee

Recognising the Stranger marks an uncharted terrain of literary critique in the shadow of Edward Said, revealing abundant insight about both the method and the intellectual. In this powerful revelation, Isabella Hammad triumphantly teaches us about anagorisis and produces a work that is its embodiment. A moving read characterised by its timelessness and the precision with which it speaks to this historical moment

Noura Erakat

An urgent work for a devastating time, Recognising the Stranger proves that Isabella Hammad is as fine a critic as she is a novelist. Following in the tradition of Edward Said, she demands an ethical, political and artistic confrontation with the text, the world, and the other. It is hardly a surprise that she is one of our most astute writers when it comes to Palestine

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Recognising the Stranger is a rigorous interrogation of the power of narrative, its usefulness, its various forms, and the ways it shapes our modes of being in the world. It speaks to literature’s capacity to invoke moments of recognition, and pushes us, as readers, to reconsider the function of storytelling within structures of oppression. It does this with a deep sense of conviction and moral clarity conveyed by a writer who is, by all accounts, a supremely gifted communicator, and we are all the better for it

Michael Magee

A clear-eyed meditation on myth, confrontation and the Palestinian struggle for liberation . . . deeply moving . . . Hammad urges her readers to listen, think beyond despair, and speak out

Big Issue