This is a powerful and gut-wrenching exploration of the Palestine conflict, blending history, literature, and deeply personal reflections. The main essay, delivered as a lecture before October 7, 2023, is already impactful, but the afterword written afterward is even more stirring, combining anger, grief, and resolve in a way that really left me thinking. Even if the facts aren’t new to you, seeing them laid out with such clarity and passion is deeply moving. This is an essential read.

Wow, this was EXCELLENT. Such an important read - or listen - in the times we’re in right now that I actually read it twice.

This is something I will revisit in the future, when hope feels lost, to remind me of what we’re fighting for.

A short but powerful read. Isabella Hammad has quicky become one of my favourite authors - her writing is always so insightful, precise, and effective. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

I've never read anything like this book. An eloquently written work of non-fiction that focuses on this concept of anagnorisis or moment of recognition. Isabella Hammad draws upon classic plays like Oedipus Rex as well as works by Palestinian authors and real-life events to explain the term. A short but valuable read, highly recommend!

Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad is both an interesting look at narrative applied to real life and a heartfelt call for applying some of the literary tools we readily use when reading fiction to actual situations so we might see people as more than numbers or members of a group without individual lives.

I think the book description and the reviews that restate what Hammad says cover that very well, so I'm not going to try to do this as a book report. I'll instead offer what the book, which is composed of a speech she gave and a follow-up essay, gave me. I will state upfront that I find the wholesale slaughter of innocents repulsive, especially when carried on long beyond the point where it can, in some eyes, be justified. Which is to say I am more than just sympathetic to her position.

Part of the richness of this book, primarily the speech, is in the way seemingly every few paragraphs can give the reader pause to consider the implications and what those implications mean to them. One example is all I want to touch on, namely because it is in part of the speech that was still building toward the larger points but also because it will help keep me from turning this into a political/social statement about what is happening now. I make plenty of those comments on my other social media so I will keep this one less political (there is no such thing as "not political," that is simply code for "I like the status quo so I'll play the faux neutral card").

In speaking about the Oedipus story she mentions the witness, the shepherd who relays the story of the baby. When I thought about that character in the context of real-world events, not just current events, I found myself pondering how such witnesses are treated. Unlike fiction where they are often accepted at face value and help lead to the resolution, real life witnesses are often demonized by whichever side doesn't like the implication of their story. Those holding tightly to one narrative, usually believing it to be perfectly correct and all-encompassing, doesn't simply ignore the other narrative, they attack it as well as the witness. From character assassination to actual murder, the dominant narrative does everything to maintain that view, ethics and morals be damned. And don't even begin to bring truth or facts into the discussion.

You can like or dislike my reading and what I took from it, but agreement isn't why I shared it. If but a few paragraphs can generate some ideas and thoughts, then the work is delivering. You could read that same section and go in another direction, or maybe not consider it beyond its place in her speech, but you will likely find other sections that cause you to apply the ideas to the world around you and how you see it. If you like books that make you think about things both great and small, then you will absolutely love this book.

If you have a strong opinion about the current state of affairs in the Middle East you will also make other more specific associations, I sure did. Ideally, even if you gain some insight into things unrelated to our current dysfunction, you will also apply some reasonable form of humanism, sorely lacking from the nation-state raging the oft forbidden g-word, to how you understand the slaughter.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

I see a number of reviewers have already said what I would like to say about this essay.
So instead I will tell you why I read this book now.

I read Hammad's debut novel, The Parisian in 2020 with a great deal of pleasure and interest. In many ways it was a literary anagnorisis moment for me. I didn't have as much luck with Enter Ghost, in part due to my preference for historical fiction, but also a lack of connection to the protagonist. For both books though, I listened and read quite a few interviews with Hammad. She is articulate, thoughtful and well-read.
When I spotted this book I knew I wanted to read it straight away because of my high regard for Hammad, but also for the timing. A speech written and given before 7th October 2023, before all the divisive media commentary, and before the distressing images of horror that have been playing out on tv screens ever since, suggested it would be an essay written in the so-called calm before the storm.
As a student of history, I have spent most of my adult life reading in and around what I can only call 'man's inhumanity to man'. It has been a constant refrain not only throughout time, but throughout the entire world. Why do we do it? Why do we other the stranger? Why do we dehumanise those we do not know, or those who get in our way?
I read Hammad's essay, like I read all history texts and historical fiction, in the hope someone will provide an answer. But, of course, as Hammad said, the best writing poses questions instead, highlighting the limitations of perspective and the precariousness of knowledge and facts.

This book has less than a hundred pages, but Hammad has given her readers much to mull over - in the realm of literature and in life. How do we face devastating knowledge? How do we move from ignorance to recognition? How do we respond?

My first suggestion would be to read this book.

My blog review - https://bronasbooks.com/2024/10/24/recognising-the-stranger-isabella-hammad/

The past year I’ve spent educating myself on Palestine and Israel’s apartheid regime and I was delighted to receive this arc.
This feels so eerie, reflecting a year after the events of October 7th and KNOWING the speech was only nine days before.
It’s disgusting to see the statistics of murders by Israeli and it’s even more disgusting how they more than tripled after the past year. America and western culture have chosen to be ignorant of the Palestinian struggle until they can no longer ignore it. Hammad’s lecture is a powerful read, one I’d recommend to anyone seeking education on Palestine. To the river to the sea.

I received an ARC from the publishers by NetGalley, so thanks to Grove Press for that.

This is an essential book to read these days. I'll confess I own her two novels, but haven't read them yet (I'm sort of saving them for a rainy day), and this book has made me bump them in my tbr. She explores Said's ideas of the other in the context of narrative and the current Palestinian experience, arguing that waiting for others to recognize their humanity under extreme circumstances undermines their lived experience by placing it in the place of "the other" that needs to be recognized. She explores literary history and psychoanalysis to weave her criticism of empire, colonialism, and contemporary capitalism. As someone who has always been somewhat aware of the Palestinian situation (I do come from a country with a large Palestinian/Lebanese community), I understand the frustration with the ways most of the west has ignored the suffering and injustice happening there, and seeing scenes of such pain and sorrow every day on social media doesn't seem to have worked to make the powers that be any more willing to do something to help.

An analysis of the Palestinian crisis through literary criticism. Certain points reflect on the lack of humanity, to fellow human beings. A literary epiphany in fiction is a revelation but in real life, creates a fissure in one's beliefs, which is much harder to change. What would it take to change one's perspective, recognizing the stranger as a mirror to one's self. There remains a refusal to look. The end of this lecture is chilling as it is published just as the retribution of the October 7 attacks begin. She sees the initial horror, but has not idea of how bad it would become. This book along with a A Day In the Life of Abed Salam demonstrate the lack of humanity for the Palestinian people. One has to wonder what comes next.

Favorite Passages:

Of course, the word recognition has another, very formal connotation in political discourse as a diplomatic or governmental action; states will recognize the sovereignty of another state or political entity, a political or legal claim, or a right to life, a right to have rights. Cultural recognition of difference can form the basis of just societies, but recognition that remains solely that--a form of acknowledgment without economic and political redistribution-is an act of language that leaves out the plot of history, where a word tries to stand in for material reparations through the smoke and mirrors of discourse and ceremony.

Rather than recognizing the stranger as familiar, and bringing a story to its close, Said asks us to recognize the familiar as stranger. He gestures at a way to dismantle the consoling fictions of fixed identity, which make it easier to herd into groups. This might be easier said than done, but it's provocative--it points out how many narratives of self, when applied to a nation-state, might one day harden into self-centered intolerance. Narrative shape can comfort and guide our efforts, but we must eventually be ready to shape-shift to be decentered, when the light of an other appears on the horizon in the project of human freedom, which remains undone.


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... emotion and understanding are not the same as action, but you might say that understanding is necessary for someone to act.

While this was very interesting [and engaging], and her insights timely, I struggled with some of this book as it was truly above my pay-grade in many ways, as I am not an intellectual and some of the language used was both unfamiliar and new to me [and even after looking up some of the words, I was left clueless], and I just struggled to understand what she was trying to convey and/or what it really meant. When I wasn't struggling with the unfamiliar words/language though, I was fully engaged [the author narrates and she does an amazing job and I loved her speaking voice] and am glad that I was able to read this.

That said, I would still recommend this book - what she has to say is important to the current dialogue and should be read by all.

Thank you to NetGalley, Isabella Hammad, and Grove Atlantic/Grove Press - Black Cat for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

All quotations below from the title under review.

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

Stranger. It’s the word we use in the English language for those with whom we have no acquaintance, those we don’t know personally. Depending on your culture or personal inclination, a stranger’s a future friend or neighbour; or, conversely, someone to keep at a distance, to ignore, to fear for their difference. In a world as riven by war, evil and suffering as ours is, it’s usually the latter.

Isabella Hammad’s Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture, delivered at Columbia University on September 28, 2023, just days before the fateful events of October 7, examines, in her words, the ‘narrative shape’ of the Palestinian struggle, and is concerned—amazingly in retrospect, with October 7 in the rearview now—with turning points. Because, she argues, we do not know or see history as we’re living it. As Georgi Gospodinov’s narrator says, in the novel Time Shelter, quoted by Hammad,

"Most likely, 1939 did not exist in 1939, there were just mornings when you woke up with a headache, uncertain and afraid."

It feels now, though, like we might be living through the pivotal moment, more and more so as the war in the Middle East rages on and on, with new outrages every day.

Hammad examines at some length what the novel does (because the novel, says Hammad, was the primary instrument through which Said viewed the world), and brings us to what she calls ‘recognition scenes,’ or what Aristotle called anagnorisis, a movement from ignorance to knowledge: those points when both the protagonist and reader gain insight—what Oprah famously referred to as aha moments.

"In the classic shape of rising action that reaches a peak before falling with the denouement or the unraveling, it’s at the peak, at the moment of tragic reversal, that the anagnorisis usually takes place."

How many aha moments does it take, Hammad muses, for the world to recognise the humanity of Palestinians? Is there any story that can be told, at this late date, that can lead to recognition of the Palestinian not as a stranger, but as part of the family? How many (individual) epiphanies will tip the scale? How much ‘education’ of Westerners will make them see? But

"…not everyone can be unpersuaded of their worldview through argument and appeal, or through narrative."

And if there’s no recognition scene, can there be a denouement?

Hammad’s lecture ends on a hopeful note, because empires and edifices do fall and have fallen. Hammad’s Afterword: On Gaza is understandably full of anger, grief and despair, some loss of hope:

"[We] don’t know in which direction we are moving. Are we seeing the beginnings of a decolonial future, or of another more complete Nakba?"

But defiance too:

"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."

Hammad is one of our voices of clarity on the Palestinian question, an unfailing guide even through her ambivalence as we fail to reach the moment of recognition. This book ends, beautifully, appropriately, and poignantly, with the words of Wael Dahdouh, the Al-Jazeera journalist whose family was killed by Israeli bombs:

"“One day this war will stop, and those of us who remain will return and rebuild, and live again in these houses.”"

Thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for early access.

Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad is an essay based off of her 2023 presentation of the same name. It is roughly 80 pages and I wish there were more. Hammad is a poignant and skilled writer, expertly laying out her claim and illustrating it in a variety of ways, drawing on logos, ethos, and pathos and intertwining them all. This essay touches on the turning point of the narrative, the point of recognition, in which we move from ignorance to knowledge. This is expertly tied into the modern day, our assumption that the story or narrative is a thing of the past and not the current moment; we forget that we are history. This essay is one of the easiest things I will ever recommend and it makes me excited to dive into Hammad's fictional works.

This book is made up of Hammad's speech delivered as the Edward W. Said Lecture at Columbia University, only days before the tragic events of 7 October 2023 and an afterword written in the early weeks of 2024.

What stands out to me is Hammad discussing how as a writer she uses what Aristotle called anagnorisis or recognition scene, a movement from ignorance to knowledge.Then in the afterword she ties the concept to the current situation in Palestine and poses the question: has the conflict reached its turning point?

Hammad recounts multiple examples of the cruelty, injustice and constant dehumanisation inflicted on Palestinians by the occupier. Every time the cruelty of the ongoing genocide reaches a new height we might think this is the turning point but sadly it isn't.

At the time Hammad wrote the afterword (January 2024) there was no end in sight and still today a ceasefire seems a long way away but let's not lose hope that it will happen.

A short but powerful book giving plenty of food for thought.

Thank you to @groveatlantic for providing a digital ARC of this book for review consideration via @netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Recognizing the Stranger is out on September 24.

▫️”This lecture was originally delivered on September 28, 2023, as the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University organized by the Society of Fellows and the Heyman Center for the Humanities.”

How amazing it would have been to be present at this lecture delivered by Isabella Hammad! Next best thing is to be able to read it in this essay form, updated with an afterword addressing developments that have occurred in its wake. Helpless as it may seem with words often feeling inadequate, I find myself thoroughly appreciating the works of writers who are genuinely moved to write to the urgency of this moment, that is already moving so rapidly, that is being moved intentionally, so that everything past feels past and details begin to blend together and memory becomes dislocated as it is paled by the force of the present.

Time is out of joint. Grief is a luxury for a body not at rest. The work of writers and thinkers like Isabella Hammad is vital, more so for those of us not in the line of fire, something we can all cling to in order not to lose ourselves and keep going, together. Even this as yet unpublished essay that is an anchor fights to find firm ground amidst the currents of time.

Delivered at the end of September 2023, at the cusp of unfathomable change to come, with an afterword written in January 2024, documenting the escalating horror of witnessing a genocide live, and fully taking in the incomprehensible number of lives taken and what that truly means, the grief and rage so overwhelming it seems as if there is no place to put it, only even more indescribable as her words, charged with this same devastation, are read by this reader in September 2024, many months down the line from when it is written, almost a year into a genocide. How to even make sense of it all, when it seems as if there is no time in the world to be still for too long.

The lecture discusses this human need to make sense of the world around us through narrative, tying it to the works of various artists and thinkers, writers and novelists, including her own work. But how is it even possible to do that, especially when it feels impossible to view an ever-moving present with any clarity. It is hard to know without the acuity of hindsight just where we are in any narrative while it still plays out. What is known is that there is change, even unprecedented change, perhaps a turning point, but to where and to what end. If there even is an end, such as an end might mean the end of a life or humanity as we know it, but not necessarily all of life with any finality.
.
Isabella Hammad writes about her own craft and the preoccupations she has as a writer, that is the moment of recognition, when something turns, when perspective shifts and new understandings register on the consciousness. She discusses the various forms this might take, with different examples to illustrate such moments of dawning recognition, a mirror to the self reflecting something new and unexpected, calling into question what has come before. As with her brilliant novel ENTER GHOST, such a narrative does not rely on a traditional beginning, middle, and an end, but takes into account a broader story, without a clear beginning or end, but with moments of such recognition.
.
The book opens with a line by the late Mahmoud Darwish: “Gaza does not propel people to cool contemplation; rather she propels them to erupt and collide with the truth". Gaza has been a conduit to recognition and reflection, a catalyst for many towards collectively creating a world we wish to be in. One that is based on human values, that finds genocide of any life so utterly intolerable that it needs to be stopped because the alternative is accepting an unwelcome mark that will set in and stain our collective humanity all the same.

Beginning and ending her memorial lecture with a reflection on the writings of the late Edward Said, she concludes:
▫️”Rather than recognizing the stranger as familiar, and bringing a story to its close, Said asks us to recognize the familiar as stranger. He gestures at a way to dismantle the consoling fictions of fixed identity, which make it easier to herd into groups. This might be easier said than done, but it’s provocative—it points out how many narratives of self, when applied to a nation-state, might one day harden into self-centered intolerance. Narrative shape can comfort and guide our efforts, but we must eventually be ready to shape-shift, to be decentered, when the light of an other appears on the horizon in the project of human freedom, which remains undone.”
.
When time is of the essence, relying on individual epiphanies is not enough, does not happen quickly enough. Even when millions line the streets worldwide, a body collective compelling action, the beneficiaries of this violent erasure attempt carry on with impunity, forcefully insisting the world accept their desired new normal. As a novelist, crafting moments of recognition designed to trigger individual epiphanies can feel hollow and ineffective, Hammad instead finding hope in just being and speaking to one another, perhaps naturally creating turning points through this most genuine of connections.
.
It was when she plainly stated the many crimes we have witnessed in her afterword, almost clinically, line by line by line, harrowing scenes that are immediately recalled from memory but have somehow been blunted despite palpable and enduring grief, until they have been confronted by this wall of words that offer a moment of strength and stillness to truly sit and listen and feel what has been insulated by life’s movements, that the weight of all that had been held wept out. The best of artists and writers and thinkers do this, do language, speak what they see, write with the impact of a sledgehammer, their words the proverbial axe to the sea that has become unwittingly frozen within.

Thank you so much @groveatlantic @netgalley for my copy of this brilliant book.

Thank you to Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Isabella Hammad for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative is a quick and accessible read for those interested in understanding the motivations behind the crucial paradigm shift toward recognising the ongoing genocide occurring before our eyes—one that has persisted far longer than November 2023.

Why do some people perceive this reality while others consistently overlook it? Isabella Hammad offers a poignant reflection on those enlightening moments and the variability of their impact.

If you are seeking a book that details the Palestinian struggle for freedom, both historically and in contemporary contexts, this may not meet your requirements. However, if you are looking for a book that examines humanity's tendency to overlook grave injustices, Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative is a must-read.

Brilliant! I am a fan of Isabella Hammad's work - especially her last novel "Enter Ghost" - and this essay is another one of her works that I can highly recommend to everyone interested in learning more about Palestine as a country, people, way of life, and mode of survival.

I appreciate the timely, profound, and urgent perspective of Hammad’s new book especially the afterward about Oct 7th. Her exploration of the concept of recognition and its limitations offers a powerful analysis of the forces that shape people’s realities and understanding.

As readers, I think we all appreciate the big “Aha!” moment in books, the moment of recognition, when all the threads come together, when all the pieces fall to place, the big reveal that makes us see the whole picture clear as day. These recognition scenes in fictional narratives are called anagnorisis, defined by Aristotle as “a movement from ignorance to knowledge,” expounded by Isabella Hammad here as “the moment when the truth of the matter dawns on a character, that moment toward which a plot usually barrels, and around which a story’s mystery resolves.”

Hammad states that as a writer, she is particularly drawn to these scenes, exploring them in her works. But in this essay, which was originally from her lecture for the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture, she brings this concept of anagnorisis beyond fictional narrative and connects it to the Palestinian cause.

Recognition is the very core of anagnorisis, but in many ways, Hammad tells us this is also the core of the Palestinian cause. Recognition. That Palestinians deserve recognition as human beings, not “human animals” or “collateral damage.” To be recognized as a state, as a people who deserve to live freely and thrive in their homeland.

Many of us now have arrived at this place of recognition, especially with all the images and stories coming out of Gaza. But Hammad writes, “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.” There is a need to act, a need to move beyond simple recognition.

Hammad delivered this lecture nine days before October 7, 2023. This book includes an afterword she wrote in January 2024. In it, she writes, “It is simultaneously true that the Nakba of 1948 never really ended, and that we are currently watching it being repeated…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?”

How do we answer?

This short book was deeply moving, and I encourage everyone to read this. Many, many thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for this e-ARC. Recognizing the Stranger by Isabella Hammad will be out on September 24, 2024

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.

This is high on the list of required reading surrounding the "conflict" in Palestine. The fact that this speech was given just days before October 7 is eerie and lends a whole other level to an already impactful book.
I really enjoyed the discussion on narrative/literature and how they shape our understanding of political events, and I couldn't stop thinking about how they are inextricably tied with propaganda and the power and benefit of the doubt given to WHO tells/writes the history.
This is worth the hour it will take people to read these 80 pages.