Enter Ghost

By: Isabella Hammad

Narrated by: Nadia Albina

Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

After years away from her family's homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn't been back since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.

Once at Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertude's lines in classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than in Haifa with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many invasive and violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.

A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.

©2023 Isabella Hammad (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Beautiful writing

The writer tells these story of a fragmented people beautifully. Masterfully blending story of Hamlet into the life of its performers , how it means so much more than a play is noticeable and how the historical & daily struggles of the inhabitants of the land just to live an ordinary life is so fueled with strong emotions like in the story of the play.

Enter Ghost

Superb! Theatre of the Superb. Great story, very lifelike. We know the characters portrayed. Great choice of wording, Great plot. Great reading.

The very age and body of the time

Nadia Albina's reading is astonishing: a profoundly developed and nuanced performance of a complex and urgently important narrative.

Wow

What an amazing story and gifted narration. Riveting, I am sure I will be revisiting this book.

So many gripping story lines!

I read The Parisian and loved it. Enter Ghost may be completely different, but the common themes of searching for self and national identity, the challenges of love and family run across both books. Sonja is a reflective and fascinating narrator whose honesty and reflexivity I could not get enough of. Gammas makes every scene come alive with detail so the story is a film running before our eyes. The turmoil of Palestine and the heartless occupation is the backdrop and the foreground.

Timely story told through Shakespeare in Palestine

Creative and elegant use of several languages. The view from inside Israel and Palestine as a therapeutic drama company performs Hamlet. Lovely narration. You are there.

Gripping

Much to love here - the writing, the history, the characters, and the brilliant way the author pulls off what could have been quite cliched - staging Hamlet in an unexpected setting. The excellent narration compounds the pleasure. The combination of great writing and narration makes this a very immersive experience, quite uncomfortable in places given the loaded setting. Well worth a read.

Revelatory and Beautiful

The play within the play offered the reader an actual experience into how one survives constant trauma, and the sequelae of generational trauma. It is an amazing story, curtain drawn open, the sun rising and setting over two peoples locked in a tragic dance. oh and the audacity of art and the artist. This book is written and performed to help us see. thank you!

Dull monotone reading

Hard to endure, so sorry I wasted my time listening!!!
Needed to listen for my book club.