Recognising the Stranger

'A book that calls us to witness our place in history' Sally Rooney

An urgent and moving essay on the Palestinian struggle and the power of narrative from the Women's Prize shortlisted author of Enter Ghost.

Award-winning author 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, Recognising the Stranger is a brilliant melding of literary and cultural analysis in which Hammad sheds true light on the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

'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

'A reminder of the radical potential of reading and the possibility of change ' OLIVIA SUDJIC

'Extraordinary and amazingly erudite' RASHID KHALIDI

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.