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*

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants KING CLAUDIUS Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death Then, because my protagonist is a woman and she plays the mother, the theme of mothers became very central to the novel. The role of the mother particularly, as that has its own specific resonance in the iconography of Palestinian resistance. Some of the images that are propagated about mothers, mother of the fighter, as a kind of Mother Mary figure. BOGAEV: So how does this come down to you? I mean, were there epiphanies for you about politics or political activism during the writing of this book? I was thirsty as well, and I needed the loo. And in this state of physical discomfort, something strange happened. My viewpoint switched, and as though I were in a dream, and my perspective had been breached, I moved like a surveillance drone and saw our project from above, situated fragilely in time and space, this summer, this side of the wall. Accompanying this vision was a fear, almost a premonition, that it was all foretold anyway. Everything had been decided in advance. We were only acting parts that had been given to us, and now some inexorable machinery was being set in motion that would sooner or later throw our efforts out into the audience, dismantle our illusions and leave us cowering before the faceless gods of fate and state.”

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Enter Priest, & c. in procession; the Corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and Mourners following; KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, their trains, & c The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow? The narrator of Hammad’s new novel, Enter Ghost, is Sonia, a British Palestinian actress who visits her sister in Israel to recover from the end of a relationship. Despite wanting to take a break from the stage, Sonia gets roped into playing Gertrude in a production of Hamlet being mounted in the West Bank. 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. BOGAEV: Well, this might be a great point for you to do a reading about acting. It’s right at the beginning of your book, and it really kind of set the stage for me with your main characters.

As the title indicates, Sonia is also haunted by her own past. She re-interrogates her understanding of family members’ involvement in the Palestinian resistance, and her own memories of summers there as a teenager – including a particularly harrowing visit to a hunger striker, one of the book’s most powerful scenes. Examinations of her difficult relationship with Haneen (the “long frail story of our sisterhood… the crosshatching of intention and advantage and betrayal”) and of the breakdown of her marriage are woven throughout too. HAMMAD: I mean, teenager, maybe. So, teenager. But then, you know, I studied at university and I found it really hard to study Shakespeare academically.Why does Sonia say that her uncle Jad was at least partly responsible for “the greater psychological allegiance of [their] family to the resistance” (p. 41) compared to other Palestinian families in Haifa? Uncle Jad became politicized later in life, while Sonia’s father Nabil was very politically active in his young adulthood. How did this shift in each brother’s political activity impact their relationship to each other, and their relationships to Sonia and Haneen? BOGAEV: Yeah, and it is pivotal in their relationship. And you get the sense that it’s kind of an unknowing on this young Sonia’s part, almost willful, like, “I can’t see that?” Or, maybe she’s too young.

How does Sonia’s childlessness, including the story of her miscarriage and abortion, offer a counterpoint that reveals both the burden on women to become mothers and the cultural treatment of women who do not have children? Why do you think Sonia chooses to share her story with Mariam? Were you surprised by Mariam’s reaction?

Terrific… Enter Ghost though contemporary, is thoroughly infused with Palestine’s past — and thoroughly haunted by Sonia’s. Hammad, who is both a delicate writer and an exact one, intertwines the two, taking care to give Sonia as many personal ghosts as she does historical ones.… Indeed, the novel seems to argue, real growth and connection, both political and personal, cannot begin until everyone’s ghosts have emerged from hiding. Art is, if nothing else, a powerful tool for coaxing them out.”— New York Times Book Review WITMORE: That was Isabella Hammad in conversation with Barbara Bogaev. Enter Ghost is out now from Grove Atlantic Press. Then, I hit upon Hamlet and it seemed actually a bit more natural as an option. I was really interested in the fact that during the, I think it was the First Intifada, Hamlet was banned in Israeli prisons. Because the, “To be or not to be,” speech was seen as a call to arms or militant resistance. “To take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing, end them.” And that was very kind of provocative to my imagination. So, I ran with it. Nothing is more flattering to an artist than the illusion that he is a secret revolutionary. These public developments created a feeling among the cast that we were, in fact, preparing ourselves on a training base for an operation with a transcendental goal, that in combing our translated lines for subtext we were fighting the odds in the name of Palestinian freedom." Hammad is a natural storyteller… The Parisian teems with riches – love, war, betrayal and madness – and marks the arrival of a bright new talent.”— Guardian