Isabella Hammad

Award-winning Novelist
Palestine Book Award Winner
5 Under 35 Honoree

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  • An Evening with Isabella Hammad

Biography

“Hammad is a natural social novelist with an ear for lively dialogue as well as an ability to illuminate psychological interiority. She is a writer of startling talent.” —Observer

“Hammad uses the features of historical novels to cut through the familiar dichotomies of West and Near East, placing her protagonist in a rich web of families, political intrigues, and cultural exchanges, and subtly reconfiguring the literary tropes of ‘home’ and ‘abroad.’” ―New Yorker

“Isabella Hammad is an enormous talent and her book is a wonder.” ―Zadie Smith

Isabella Hammad is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Parisian (Grove Press, 2019), which won the 2019 Palestine Book Award. She was a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, and the debut was praised by the New York Times Book Review as a “dazzling…deeply-imagined historical novel.” A love story set amidst the political tumult of Palestine in the early 20th century, The Parisian was awarded the the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Betty Trask Award from the Society of Authors in the UK, and the Plimpton Prize. She is also the author of the amazingly erudite essay, Recognizing the Stranger (Grove Atlantic, 2024), on the Palestinian struggle and the power of narrative.

The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return home to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence. “Written in soulful, searching prose,” The Guardian continues: “it’s a jam-packed epic that sets the life of one man against the backdrop of the fall of the Ottoman empire, the British mandate over Palestine and the Arab uprising for independence. Hammad wades through more than 20 years of political upheaval to explore ideas about cultural identity, parental betrayal and the accidental harm we often cause others.”

She is also the author of the novel Enter Ghost, which won the 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize; a bold, evocative story, the novel follows actress Sonia as she returns to Palestine and takes a role in a West Bank production of Hamlet. Of Hammad’s second book, Leila Aboulela says: “Aesthetically, intellectually, emotionally and culturally satisfying. It is astonishing but true that Isabella Hammad is incapable of striking a false note. She immerses her heroine in volatile territory with the accuracy, compassion and coolness of a surgical knife sliding into a diseased body. The result is a stunning beauty — an eye-opening, uplifting novel that grants its vulnerable cast and their endeavors a rare and graceful dignity.”

Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions, The Paris Review, The New York Times and elsewhere. Her story “Mr. Can’aan” won the 2019 O. Henry Prize and the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction.

Born in London, Hammad obtained her undergraduate degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University. In 2020 she received a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, in 2012 she was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard GSAS, and in 2013 she received the Harper Wood Creative Writing Studentship from Cambridge University. During her MFA in Fiction at New York University she was a Stein Fellow, and she was the 2016-2017 Axinn Foundation NYU Writer-in-Residence.

Short Bio

Isabella Hammad was born in London. Her writing has appeared in Conjunctions, The Paris Review, The New York Times and elsewhere. She was awarded the 2018 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and a 2019 O. Henry Prize. Her first novel The Parisian (2019) won a Palestine Book Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Betty Trask Award from the Society of Authors in the UK. She is also the author of the novel Enter Ghost, which won the 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize. Hammad was a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, and has received literary fellowships from MacDowell and the Lannan Foundation.

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