Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative

by Isabella Hammad

From the award-winning novelist of The Parisian and Enter Ghost comes an outstanding essay on the Palestinian struggle and the power of narrative.

Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University nine days before October 7th, 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 seems a turning point in the narrative of human history. Profound and moving, Hammad writes from within the moment, giving voice to the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Recognizing 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.

"Extraordinary and amazingly erudite. Hammad shows how art and especially literature can be much, much more revealing than political writing.” — Rashid Khalidi, author of the New York Times bestseller The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, History, Audiobook, Middle East, War

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2024

About the author

Hammad is the author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

even the random quotes and passages i've encountered from this have made me catch my breath

[s.penkevich [mental health hiatus] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narratives often hinge on a moment of recognition, an instance of climactic culmination between the various strands of story when the character—and often the audience or reader—makes a critical discovery and recognizes the truth about a situation. Aristotle terms this anagnorisis, a moment in the narrative Isabella Hammad tells us is a way ‘to perceive clearly what on some level you have known all along, but that perhaps you did not want to know.’ We see this often in stories of misunderstood or disguised identity she explains, citing Oedipus or The Importance of Being Ernest, before telling a story of an Israeli soldier who, being approached by a Palestinian man without clothes carrying a photo of his family, decides not to shoot him. It was a moment of recognition of a Palestinian as a fellow human being, but the tragedy is ‘how many Palestinians need to die for one soldier to have his epiphany?’

This question is at the heart of her Recognizing the Stranger, an excellent essay composed from her 2023 Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University just days before the events of October 7th with a follow-up afterword written in January 2024. Hammad uses the lens of literature and literary criticisms such as the works of Edward W. Said along with texts from Mahmoud Darwish, Anne Carson, Ghassan Kanafani, Elena Ferrante, Maggie Nelson and more as a way to examine the functions of narrative as a way to better examine the story of Palestine, how ‘the flow of history always exceeds the narrative frames we impose on it,’ and to confront the violence against the Palestinian people. As Sylvia Wynter writes, the novel is a revolutionary form because it ‘is in essence a question mark’ and Hammad tells us ‘perhaps it’s enough to ask a question, and hope, perhaps, to glimpse the meaning of that question in retrospect.’

‘To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.’

Javier Marías wrote that while many find a novel a method ‘of imparting knowledge,’ for him it is ‘more a way of imparting recognition of things that you didn’t know you knew.’ Hammad transfers this idea into the long suffering of the Palestinian people who are constantly having to justify their humanity to the world. They need recognition, something that occurs even on legal basis of being able to have their homeland recognized. She moves into discussions on colonial powers and governments who refuse such recognition to the extent that ‘speech in support of Palestinian rights is punished at the highest levels,’ something that rings true with the recent wave of authors being canceled from events or actors fired for having spoken out, even Universities unleashing police violence on students. The conflicts and violence in the region have long been hotly debated and, as Mahmoud Darwish once wrote, ‘Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth.’

Language is important, she mentions, and in an interview with The Guardian, the interviewer mentioned in this book that ‘You refer to Israel as “a militarised society in which dissent is punished” and liken 7 October to an “incredibly violent jailbreak”.’ To this Hammad responds ‘I’m just trying to be precise with language – that’s the least we can do.’ But we must also use language to find recognition.

‘To induce a person’s change of heart is different from challenging the tremendous force of collective denial. And denial is arguably the opposite of recognition. But even denial is based on a kind of knowing. A willful turning from devastating knowledge, perhaps, out of fear.’

One soldier is not enough. Hammad calls on us all to speak, to recognize, to return humanity to those who have had it denied.

‘As I write this, a ceasefire has still not been called. I wonder what reality you now live in. From the point in time at which you read this, what do you say of the moment I am in? How large is the gulf between us?...Are we seeing the beginnings of a decolonial future, or of another more complete Nakba?’

An excellent little book that offers an incisive look at the need for recognition of Palestine as well as a heartbreaking account of watching the genocide being carried out against it. Isabella Hammad addresses politics and people through a language of narrative that helps unpack heavy issues in productive ways and Recognizing the Stranger is a sad but important read.

‘One day this war will stop, and those of us who remain will return and rebuild, and live again in these houses.’
— Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera journalist

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift and a challenge. Thank you, Isabella Hammad

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brief book/essay though one that still made an impact. Isabella Hammad writes with intellect and conviction about the dehumanization of Palestinians and the power of literature to illuminate truths about oppression and injustice. At the same time, Hammad honors how devastating it is for Palestinians to have suffered and to have faced/continue to face genocide – how it’s insufficient for stories to change hearts when Palestinian lives have already been cut short. A moving read and one that may be particularly well-suited for those who enjoy reading about literature or reading literary criticism.

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply brilliant. I want more like this

[Sana · Rating 3 out of 5]

بازشناختن غریبه کتابی کوتاه اما اندیشمندانه است؛ سخنرانی‌ای از ایزابلا حماد که با ترجمه‌ی روان الهام شوشتری‌زاده منتشر شده. حماد با بهره‌گیری از مفهوم «بازشناختن» در درام‌های یونانی، به تجربه‌ی فلسطین و روایت‌های سرکوب‌شده‌ی آن پیوند می‌زند.

قدرت این متن در ترکیب سه لایه است: نقد ادبی، تاریخ و روایت شخصی است .زبان کتاب فشرده، شاعرانه و پر از جملاتی است که ارزش دوباره‌خوانی دارند. شاید کوتاه باشد، اما تأثیری ماندگار بر ذهن می‌گذارد و دریچه‌ای تازه برای فهم مسئله‌ی فلسطین و نقد استعمار باز می‌کند.
ودرآخر کتاب بازشناختن غریبه کتابی کوتاه، عمیق و تکان‌دهنده ست.

[Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there."

Another really great book from Isabella Hammad on the way narratives shape and inform political realities.

[Isabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Isabella Hammad’s lecture is a powerful example of how to combine intellectual depth with emotional engagement. Praises still do not match the brilliance Hammad shared for one hour (yes, it is just one hour so you should definitely listen!) at the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University just days before Oct 7, 2023, unintentionally making her words even more timely and profound.

“How many Palestinians need to die for one soldier to have their epiphany?”

Hammad speaks on the occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians through the lens of anagnorisis (the point in a story in which a principal character realizes another character's true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances). Smart and moving, if this speech is any reflection of her other writing, I will be picking up a copy Enter Ghost and The Parisian very soon.

Excellent.

Thanks to Netgalley, RBmedia, and Isabella Hammad for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

I felt compelled to listen to Hammad’s lecture because I read s.penkevich's review
, a compelling and effective analysis that resonates both as a literary critique and a reflection on contemporary issues. Also recommended reading.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a speech and a short essay on the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the narrative arch of the story of Palestinians since the Nakba. This book is so slim that once it got cooking, in the essay, it was over. I liked it but wanted so much more. Hammad writes beautifully and I loved her thinking through Palestine and Palestinians as part of a narrative lineage.

[Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anagnorisis Reveal
A review of the Recorded Books audiobook (September 24, 2024) released simultaneously with the Grove Press Black Cat paperback/ebook.

Anagnorisis (/ˌænəɡˈnɒrɪsɪs/; Ancient Greek: ἀναγνώρισις) is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery.
Aristotle defined anagnorisis as "a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune." - definitions from Wikipedia.

Isabella Hammad's lecture starts off so academic that you wonder if you will even be able to follow along. Beginning with the introduction of the word anagnorisis and then going on with a discussion of Ancient Greek theatre. It starts to become a bit clearer with an example of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (430 BC) when Oedipus realizes he has actually fulfilled the prophecy that he would kill his own father and marry his mother.

The tie-in to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a story of an Israeli officer deserting his post (where he had been told to shoot approaching intruders) when confronted by a naked man brandishing a photograph of his dead child. That becomes the point of revelation.

The audiobook edition provides the added bonus of including the recording of the actual lecture as it was delivered as the Edward W. Said (1935-2003) Memorial Lecture at Columbia University on September 28, 2023.

Trivia and Links
A video recording of the September 28, 2023 lecture is available on YouTube here.

Isabella Hammad is an author of Palestinian heritage living in the UK. Her earlier novels were The Parisian (2019) and Enter Ghost (2023). The latter book was shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction. She is currently working on her next novel which will be a historical fiction centering around the Bandung Conference of non-aligned African and Asian nations held in Indonesia in 1955.

[ReemK10 (Paper Pills) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, what can one say? We've had over a year of Palestinians being slaughtered without our politicians doing anything. This ongoing genocide has made it abundantly clear that the world doesn't care about Palestinians. Or it doesn't care enough to do anything to stop their misery. I have no words.

A few reels:
1. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA03g_...

2. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA5_Kx...

3. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA_xJ-...

[Emmeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems wrong to admit to deeply enjoying this essay, given the context, yet I read Isabella Hammad’s reflections on literature and the crafting of novels with great pleasure, and watched her tie these to the idea of narrativizing Palestine with admiration.

The idea revolves around moments of recognition, where something is known that cannot be unknown, which fundamentally changes the game and shows the observer or reader the limits of knowledge. On the literary side, Hammad refers to this by Aristotle’s term of anagnorisis, and points to examples in literature such as Oedipus discovering who he is, or the reader of My Brilliant Friend learning who the brilliant friend of the title is. In the real world, she points to the moment when people, be they foreign writers or Israeli soldiers, face the reality of Palestine, which they may have known but did not want to know.

I was captivated by the idea of these moments of recognition. I’m unsure how much of this is a general topic in writing programs; my own feelings about writing is that successful pieces often work on a simple mechanism of reversal, often the simpler the better (as in the Elena Ferrante novel) and I feel like my instinct for reversal is largely the same thing as anagnorisis. So much for original thought, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless to see your own ideas come back to you, with a proper name.

Elsewhere the essay covers the role of the novel, both in its current form – “we must admit that novels are a form of entertainment, existing somewhere between movies and poems…They are a form that was born in the age of mechanical reproduction, and they are sold as commodities, an activity that today has rather a lot more to do with branding and marketing than it used to—a fact that is particularly confusing and troubling to exactly the type of person who might end up spending their time reading and writing novels”… and its ideal role: “literary anagnorisis feels most truthful when it is not redemptive; when it instead stages a troubling encounter with limitation or wrongness. This is the most I think we can hope for from novels: not revelation, not the dawning of knowledge, but the exposure of its limit. To realise you have been wrong about something is, I believe, to experience the otherness of the world coming at you.”

And she goes on to argue that “recognition is a kind of knowing that should incur the responsibility to act.”

Well, I am a lover of what I will imprecisely call “what is truth? narratives”, and also of political fiction that is not obvious or stupid and also, this past year more than ever, of the responsibility to act. So this was a wonderful short read that resulted in lots of underlining.

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is composed first of Isabella Hammad’s September 2023 lecture and then an afterword reflecting on the developments since October 7th. And so, her chosen topic – that of anagnorisis – feels intensely prescient. Hammad’s original lecture extends the term, the moment of discovery in which one realises previous ignorance, beyond the literary. Our lives may exceed the narrative frame and yet, “we hope for resolution, or at least we hope that retrospectively what felt like a crisis will turn out to have been a turning point.” From ‘ana’ (again) and ‘gnorizein’ (to make known, to gain knowledge of), anagnorisis is contained in an already knowing. Re-cognition more a confrontation by that which we do not want to know than a revelation. Was Oedipus really not able to connect the dots without a witness testimony? Does Perry the Platypus really need his brown fedora? Did we need the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East to come to these moments of private reckoning?

While in Palestine with a group of international writers, Hammad finds herself once again the audience to such a moment. “I was moved to see them moved. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a kind of despairing déjà vu, the scene of recognition having become at this point rather familiar.” Here, realisation is not experienced by Palestinians and yet relies on Palestinian assertions of humanity. They are expected to relate the humanising details that might “allow for the conversion of the repentant Westerner, who might then descend onto the stage if not as a hero then perhaps as some kind of deus ex machina.” Instead, Hammad echoes a question Yasmin El-Rifae presents in her history of militant feminists in the final days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution: can we break into male consciousness without direct address? Simply “as a by-product of us speaking to one another?”

This lecture is so rich it seems hard to believe it was not intended for the page. Hammad holds up familiar ideas for closer inspection and, in so doing, captures not just the carefully distilled thought, but our gaze upon it. Following Edward Said, the site of recognition is reversed; the familiar becomes stranger; “the consoling fictions of fixed identity” are uprooted. Hammad notes that while recognising the limits of one’s knowledge can be exhilarating in fiction, it is often terrifying in life. “In real life, shifts in collective understanding are necessary for major changes to occur, but on the human, individual scale, they are humbling and existentially disturbing.”

For those of us who read both lecture and afterword after October 2023, they feel like a natural extension of one another. At this critical juncture we make the dramatic turn and come eye to eye with our past reasoning. “To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak.”

[Vartika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most media, and particularly books and films, hinges on an "Aha!" moment: the point of recognition, the juncture were all disparate threads come together not in a tangle but as an interlinked web of meaning and coherence, the precise point at which we – or the characters who stand in for us – begin sensing the narrative being built and, having recognised it, become capable, at least intellectually, of shaping it. It is this recognition scene, Isabella Hammad argues, that we seek out in literature and in life; it is this movement – which Aristotle termed anagnorisis – that underlies our impulse to examine our own stories and put a finger to the turning points therein.

In Recognising the Stranger, Hammad brings this concept of anagnorisis out of the realm of literary criticism and psychoanalysis, and relates it to the Palestinian cause. She points to how "the flow of history always exceeds the narrative frames we impose on it," and moves to discerning how this – fact – informs the discourse around Palestine and the very recognition of Palestinians as people, and as a people with the right to have rights. Using Said and literary criticism as her vehicle, Hammad here presents an erudite analysis of European empire, Zionist expansionism, and the cruelty of American hegemony; of the injustices at hand and how they came to, and continue to be.

This essay was first delivered at the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University – nine days before the events of 7 October 2023 – and is here accompanied by an afterword written in January 2024. There were many potential turning points in the interim between the two pieces, and there have been more since, and it is deeply poignant how the crimes continue to worsen but not much has changed in terms of recognition:

As I write this, a ceasefire has still not been called. I wonder what reality you now live in. From the point in time at which you read this, what do you say of the moment I am in? How large is the gulf between us?

Are we seeing the beginnings of a decolonial future, or of another more complete Nakba?

How do we respond?

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recognizing the Stranger was not what I initially expected, but something I ultimately appreciated. When we delved right in to literary theory, I briefly wondered if I’d somehow downloaded the wrong book. As Isabella Hammad’s lecture went on, I realized that I’d seen this sort of thing before. In Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, I was constantly moved by how the contributors used their relationships, hobbies, and professional training to resist Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and support their fellow humans living under siege in Gaza. In Recognizing the Stranger, Hammad continues this practice of taking whatever it is you love or know—in this case, literary theory—and using it to stand against evil.

Her lecture starts with how most novels are all about anagnorisis, this moment of critical understanding, discovery, or recognition. In fiction, this turning point is often clear for both readers and writers. In real life, though, these turning points are less clear. The moment in history where enough people recognize the wrong of a certain situation, and successfully act to end that wrong, is all but impossible to tell in real time. And still, in light of the decades of unimaginable terror, nutritional deprivation, environmental pillaging, forced isolation, and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, Hammad is compelled to ask—when is the societal moment of recognition about Palestine?

She returns to literature to show that there are many examples of individual recognition, but these often fail to compel entire systems of power to shift. There is also the issue that many of these personal epiphanies center the onlooker. Hammad notes her appreciation for “this idea of breaking into the awareness of other people by talking candidly among ourselves” (25), a practice that many oppressed artists have taken up in light of the limits of awareness. After all, many people are interested in consuming the terror of other people, but this awareness does not lead to demands for an end to this terror (can anyone tell I reread Chaing-Gang All-Stars this week?) As Hammad notes, shifting someone’s belief system, moving them from awareness to recognition to action, can be a violent, earth-shattering process. Even if that process is successful, it's often not enough, not if the overarching power structures and imbalances stay in place.

Catching up to now
Hammad’s original lecture was given in September 2023, 9 days before October 7. The book’s afterword was written in January 2024, and reckons with the current genocidal campaign in Gaza, and how it has failed to result in the sorts of recognition needed for a permanent ceasefire. On page 41, she poses a series of haunting questions: “As I write this, a ceasefire has still not been called. I wonder what reality you now live in. From the point in time at which you read this, what do you say of the moment I am in? How large is the gulf between us?”

In my opinion, this gulf continues to grow into a chasm. The death toll Hammad noted just a year ago has doubled, with more than 50,000 people in Gaza having been murdered in this war. Now that Israel has broken January’s ceasefire, who knows when this carnage will end. As I write this, Israel is currently bombing Gaza during Eid celebrations, a pattern of religious violence and oppression that the country has long used in times of war and “peace.” While Gazans should be breaking fast with their families, fresh food is rotting at the Rafah crossing, because Israel is once again blockading aid trucks from entering Gaza. Terror begets terror, violence begets violence, and grief begets unimaginable grief.

It’s also notable that Hammad’s original lecture was given at Columbia University, which has become a central site for my country’s repression of Palestinian activists. The administration recently expelled and revoked the degrees of students who occupied a college building in memory (recognition) of Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old girl who was attempting to flee Gaza City along with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. After Israeli soldiers in an armored tank murdered the rest of Hind’s family, ambulance workers requested safe passage to rescue this child. The Israeli army used a U.S. manufactured missile to murder the ambulance workers sent to rescue Hind, as well. Over in America, the Columbia students’ commemoration of this grievous tragedy against Hind Rajab and the people who cared about her has been met with a cerebral violence, which seeks to keep students in line through the power of threats and fear.

If that weren’t enough, Columbia is also capitalizing on Trump’s expansion of the immigrant detention system. Columbia’s board of trustees provided ICE with information about Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian alum and organizer in the 2024 encampments, resulting in Khalil’s detention and the revoking of his green card. These are terrifying times, times when one’s actions to protest Israel’s slaughter in Gaza can bear life-changinb consequences. This isn’t unprecedented, not in a country that has gunned down other anti-war protestors and soon-to-be-fathers, but it’s still unimaginably bleak. If so moved/able, you can read Khalil’s own words about being detained in Louisiana, and support the fund for his legal defense and family’s expenses for their unborn child.

Final thoughts + follow-up reading
This lecture mostly features Hammad using her training as a novelist to think deeply about Palestine. As a result, I’m coming away with a pretty long TBR list. I now want to read Radius by Yasmin El-Rifae, Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, Isabella Hammad’s own books, Exterminate All the Brutes by Sven Lindqvist, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and something on the US-facilitated genocides in Guatemala and Indonesia.

In closing, I think this book is an important offering to keep recognizing and acting to resist Israel’s genocidal occupation of Palestine. Hammad says it best on page 30: “In the language of both law and literary form, then, recognition is a kind of knowing that should incur the responsibility to act for it to have any value beyond personal epiphanies, or appeasing the critics of the one doing the recognizing. Great effort is required to ensure that such a moment marks the middle of the story, and not the finale. Another act must follow.” If you are looking for one way to act, I will close with a small recommendation. My friend’s girlfriend is fundraising for Mo Khalifa, a young man in Gaza who is helping many others in his community survive, while also hoping that one day this terror will end and he can focus on his musical dreams. You can read more about Mo, and donate to a crowdfund campaign for him, at this link.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this NOW. Free Palestine.

[Ameema S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

EDIT: I’ve never done this before, but just a few days after listening to this brilliant audiobook (& the original speech) - I was given a copy of this book, and when I got home this evening, I read it again. This book is brilliant. Poignant, thought-provoking, and truly stunning. This book is a masterpiece.

“How many Palestinians need to die for one soldier to have his epiphany."

This was a brilliant work, using the lens of narrative device to frame the realities of Palestinian people, and their lives under occupation, erasure, and genocide. Initially written as a speech presented on the 20th anniversary of Edward Said's death, just a few days before October 7th, 2023. I don't want to say its eerily prescient, because the truth is, Palestinian people have been displaced, and lived under occupation and violence for over 75 years. However, it is surreal how much truer and more urgent this book feels now, almost a year to the date since the speech was given, and approaching one year of Israeli bombardment and genocide, which has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian people, hundreds of Lebanese people, and the injuries, displacement, imprisonment, and traumatization of thousands.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and that adds another dimension, as we hear excerpts from the actual speech delivered. This is short, but incredibly impactful. A truly powerful, necessary, brilliant, and beautiful work.

I received this audiobook from the publisher, through Netgalley.

[Bas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a 'wonderful' little book, it contains so much in so few pages. Maybe wonderful or beautiful aren't appropriate terms to describe this essay but it brilliantly argued, emotionally gut punching, fury inducing and the fact that Hammad after everything doesn't completely lose hope is something that I respect massively . I think it's a rewarding read both for people who know a lot about the Palestine conflict and those who don't. If you have followed the news a little bit the past year , a lot of the facts won't be new to you but it doesn't loose it's power to seem them lined up again.

This book exists out of two parts, both are very rewarding. The biggest part is a lecture Isabella Hammad gave a few days before 7 Oktober 2023. It mixes history with literature and aspects of Hammad's personal life and it's already extremely powerful. But that I personally found the afterword written after 7 October even better and even more emotional. There is a combination there of impotence, anger and resoluteness that's very powerful to read and which gave me chills. This is one of those books I believe everyone should read, don't look away !

The amount of passages here that I would like to quote are immense but these stood out to me:

'Ten Thousand dead children is not self-defense.'

' The Israeli government would like to destroy Palestine, but they are mistaken if they think this is really possible. Palestine is in Haifa. Palestine is in Jerusalem. Palestine is in Gaza and Palestine is in the Mediterranean Sea and Palestine is alive in the refugee camps, from Shatila to Yarmouk. Palestine is even alive and well in New York. Do they really believe they can obliterate the Palestinian will to life ? Their seventy-six-year attempt - sometimes protracted, sometimes fast- to eliminate the native seems at times like the strategy of fools. Of course they will harden Gaza each time they bomb her; of course they will force her resistance fighters underground. Possibly they know this very well, and even desire it, since it provides a pretext to keep bombing. But they can never complete the process, because they cannot kill us all.'

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 5 out of 5]

ALC provided by Recorded Books and Grove Atlantic in exchange for an honest review

“How many Palestinians need to die for one soldier to have their epiphany?”

There is something incredibly compelling about the works of Palestinian writers. From Edward W. Said, Ghassan Kanafani, and Emile Habiby to Susan Abulhawa, Adania Shibli, Mosab Abu Toha, and, of course, Isabella Hammad herself--it seems that Palestine has a rich tradition of storytellers.

It's not just that their writing is soaked with the blood and tears of the Nakba, and of ongoing apartheid and genocide. I couldn’t figure out what made their stories so particularly moving until this essay, which is the speech Hammad gave at the 2023 Edward Said Memorial Lecture in late 2023. In RECOGNIZING THE STRANGER, Hammad blends literary analysis and political commentary to deliver the kind of essay that will forever change the way you look at Palestine and narrative.

Hammad’s main argument is that the narrative about Palestine uses the literary concept of “anagnorisis” (pronounced uh-nag-NOR-isis”). This is the moment in a story, usually near the climax, when the character realizes the truth about the situation, themself, or someone else–often “to perceive clearly what on some level you have known all along, but that perhaps you did not want to know.”

In the Palestinian context, it can be applied to the moment when a non-Palestinian realizes that Palestinians are human beings as well. The opening quote is from an example given by Hammad of an Israeli soldier who ends up not shooting an approaching Palestinian because the man has come, naked and bearing a photo of his family member.

The implications of this framework are twofold. The first is the fact that Palestinians are constantly having to justify their humanity to the world, when they should be treated as people from the start. The purpose of a Palestinian life is cruelly reduced to using it to justify their existence to non-Palestinians.

The second is what happens when, past the point of anagnorisis, an individual, country, or global system needs to ignore their moment of “recognizing the stranger” in order to continue their acts of colonialism, nationhood, military assault, whatever. For just as the story of Palestine as told by Palestinians presents one kind of narrative, so too do participants in genocide, settler colonialism, and American-style imperialism have to write their own narrative about Palestinians in order to justify themselves.

Hammad’s writing is incredibly sharp, moving, and insightful, and makes me want to seek out her other works. The audiobook also has the bonus track of the actual recording of Hammad giving her speech in September 2023. RECOGNIZING THE STRANGER is an absolute must-read for those who perch at the intersection of loving literature and advocating for Palestine.

[Parisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“…Israeli apartheid will also end. The question is, when and how? Where in the narrative do we now stand?”

[makayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

“How many Palestinians, asked Omar Barghouti, need to die for one soldier to have their epiphany?”

[Sarah (menace mode) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What in fiction is enjoyable and beautiful is often terrifying in real life. In real life, shifts in collective understanding are necessary for major changes to occur, but on the human, individual scale, they are humbling and existentially disturbing. Such shifts also do not usually come without a fight: not everyone can be unpersuaded of their worldview through argument and appeal, or through narrative.” A short but incisive essay on the Palestinian struggle and the need for us to not only witness our place in history, but to help craft it ourselves. We have as much power as the person next to us to change the accepted rhetoric and narrative. 1000/10 must read‼️

[Ebony Purks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this and then read “One Day, Everyone Will Have Been Against This” by Omar El Akkad or vice versa. It’s a harrowing experience to write about tragedy as it’s unfolding. In both books, Isabella Hamad and Akkad are reckoning with violence as they’re watching it, enduring it. Both books are masterclasses in journalism (in the case of Akkad’s book) and rhetorical analysis (in the case of Hamad’s book). Both blend autobiographical accounts into their discussion of Palestine and narrative because how can they not? I think anyone who writes and/or who loves fiction needs to read “Recognizing the Stranger” yesterday!

[Zana · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Mahmoud Darwish tells us: "Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth."'

Even though it was quite short, I really did appreciate how the audiobook included a studio recording of this talk, plus a live recording with intros and a conclusion from other speakers. (I don't usually listen to these kinds of audiobooks, so I'm not sure if this is the norm for this genre.) I ended up borrowing the ebook from the library for a reread, which was really helpful with understanding the text.

I didn't study English Lit or the Humanities, so I'll admit, the first half of the talk was lost on me. Someone with a more Classical Studies background might appreciate her deep dive into the concept of anagnorisis and its comparisons to the individual's recognition and realization of the Palestinian struggle for independence.

Upon reread, I ended up loving how Isabella Hammad talked about Edward Said's life's work with literature and colonialism, and then using those topics to build upon her own thesis about Palestinian independence, particularly how an individual comes to their own understanding about Palestinians' right to self-determination.

"Palestinianism was for Said a condition of chronic exile, exile as agony but also as ethical position. To remain aloof from the group while honoring one's organic ties to it; to exist between loneliness and alignment, remaining always a bit of a stranger; to resist the resolution of the narrative, the closing of the circle; to keep looking, to not feel too at home."

I also liked how Hammad, in the afterword, added in statistics about the effects of bombings on climate change regarding the ongoing genocide:

"The first two months of this most recent Israeli assault saw at least 281,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere—greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than twenty of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations. How can we expect to care for our planet and its resources and our collective future if such atrocities can happen before our eyes with the support of the world's great powers? This attack is a cataclysm not only for Palestinians but for everyone."

I don't have much to add to this critique, but I'll leave my review with this quote:

"The Israeli government would like to destroy Palestine, but they are mistaken if they think this is really possible. Palestine is in Haifa. Palestine is in Jerusalem. Palestine is in Gaza and Palestine is in the Mediterranean Sea and Palestine is alive in the refugee camps, from Shatila to Yarmouk. Palestine is even alive and well in New York. Do they really believe they can obliterate the Palestinian will to life?"

Thank you to Recorded Books and NetGalley for this arc.

[Ditte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isabella Hammad's lecture on narrative, recognition, and turning points pertaining to Palestine and its people's strife is incredibly powerful, harrowing, and beautiful.

"The flow of history always exceeds the narrative frames we impose on it."

Hammad gave the speech at the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University on September 28, just nine days before October 7 and the beginning of the Palestinean genocide. 
The book contains her speech, as well as an afterword she wrote about Gaza and the ongoing genocide in January 2024.

As a fan of Said's writing and ideas, I put on this short audiobook hoping for an interesting speech, and Hammad blew my expectations out of the water.

The speech is beautifully written, the content relevant, interesting, enlightening, and poignant, and I found myself tearing up several times.

Hammad gets into narrative, anagnorisis, epiphanies, recognition, humanism, and colonialism, and delivers it eloquently and like a punch to the gut. A must-read!

Important quotes:

"The present onslaught leaves no space for mourning, since mourning requires an afterward, but only for repeated shock and the ebb and flow of grief. We who are not there, witnessing from afar, in what ways are we mutilating ourselves when we dissociate to cope? To remain human at this juncture is to remain in agony. Let us remain there: it is the more honest place from which to speak"


"It will be easy to say, in hindsight, what a terrible thing. That was a terrible moment, when the movements of the world were out of my hands. 
Do not give in. Be like the Palestinians in Gaza. Look them in the face. Say: that’s me! Mahmoud Darwish tells us: “Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth.”"


"It’s one thing to see shifts on an individual level, but quite another to see them on an institutional or governmental one. To induce a person’s change of heart is different from challenging the tremendous force of collective denial."


"Somewhere recently humanity seems to have crossed an invisible line, and on this side naked power combined with the will to profit threaten to overwhelm the collective interests of our species."

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

big huge enormous ginormous brain

[Naseerah]

Brilliant, timely and essential reading

[Mlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is less than 100 pages so u have no excuse not to read it
if it takes me hitting u on the head with it i will do it
albeit its very thin so idk how threatening that is

regardless isabella hammad is able to articulate the role of fiction, language & oral histories when it comes to the marginalisation and demonisation of the palestinians. she references everything, from edward said to socrates to shakespeare and does it so eloquently and in a way that isnt too fancy that it's inaccessible. read it rn

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an explainer on Palestine - see John Oliver's recent episode for a good one - but an essay/speech exploring the nature of persuasion, whether literary or IRL. Citing a number of Palestinian (and other) writers, Hammad first goes into the history of recognition and epiphany scenes, and then continues to muse on what it would take for outsiders (specifically world imperial powers) to recognize the appalling situation Palestinians have been forced to endure for decades. There is a brief epilogue written after Hamas's attack of last October, which more directly addresses the even more egregious suffering of the last 11 months, to echo the question: what will it take to get the West to pay attention and advocate against apartheid in Israel to the same degree that it did in South Africa? Hammad asks all of the questions and it's fitting that they function rhetorically in print; she gets the same lack of answer here as Palestine does everywhere. It's a sobering, short, and well written addition to the collection of similar books that have been coming out in the past few years. Hopefully, as Hammad writes, this is a turning point and we just don't know it yet.

[Hayley]

“What I learned through writing this book is that literary anagnorisis feels most truthful when it is not redemptive: when it instead stages a troubling encounter with limitation or wrongness. This is the most I think we can hope for from novels: not revelation, not the dawning of knowledge, but the exposure of its limit. To realize you have been wrong about something is, I believe, to experience the otherness of the world coming at you. It is to be thrown off-center.”