Hamlet on the West Bank: Isabella Hammad and Priya Bains


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Dec 07 2024 62 mins   1

Sonia Nasir is a somewhat successful actor in London. After a distressing end to a love affair, she travels to see her sister in Haifa, Israel, where their father’s family is from, and where she’s hardly been since she was a teenager. Soon, she is pulled into a local theatre production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the West Bank. And as the past catches up with Sonia, ghosts appear off stage as well.

Enter Ghost is a complex and skillfully composed novel, an exploration of identity and belonging, the role of art, community, and the painful story of a family and a people.

Isabella Hammad is a British-Palestinian author. Her debut novel The Parisian won a number of awards, including the Betty Trask Award and the Palestine Book Award, and I 2023, she was included on Granta’s prestigious list of Best young British Novelists. Enter Ghost is her second novel.

Priya Bains is a poet, an activist and editor of the literary magazine Vinduet. She will join Hammad for a conversation about ghosts and sisters, Hamlet and the occupation.



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