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**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024**

Reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir finds love and hope in Shakespeare and Palestine.

‘A vital storyteller’
ALI SMITH

After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. On her arrival, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.

When Sonia meets the charismatic Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing with a dedicated, if competitive, group of men – yet as opening night draws closer, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life she once knew starts to give way to the exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.

‘A novel to savour’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Captivating…deeply moving’
HARPER’S BAZAAR

‘Powerful… Hammad is a pretty flawless writer’
THE TIMES

A GRANTA BEST YOUNG BRITISH NOVELIST

* A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST AND VULTURE *

Publisher Review

Beautifully written, poignant yet forceful, thoughtful and thought provoking, but above all challenging the reader to respond to the question facing the characters in the novel: how to live under occupation while preserving your dignity and humanity? Hammad answers this question through taking us into the hearts and minds of the characters in the novel and through that into the heart and mind of Palestine. -- Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran Enter Ghost is a masterful, deeply convincing portrait of the all-too-real consequences of political theater - in both senses. A moving and important novel that presses upon the urgent question of how we ought to live in the midst of the rubble (and ongoing chaos) of political crisis. -- Namwali Serpell, author of The Old Drift Outstanding. Next-level. 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. -- Leila Aboulela, author of Minaret [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 * A powerful new novel... Hammad is a pretty flawless writer who, despite her harrowing and often intellectually complex subject matter, produces easily readable, human, generous work. * The Times * A richly layered novel... [Hammad] takes her time, writing with an elegant, confident poise and accumulation of detail this is refreshingly unfashionable. * Observer *