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Enter Ghost: from one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists

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KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES' hand into HAMLET's HAMLET Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong; While Sonia ponders art’s limits in desperate situations (“I had a horrible, useless revelation, which was that in some way the meaning of our Hamlet depended on this suffering”), the novel nonetheless builds to her troupe’s performance, which gains a charge from the defiance it requires. On opening night, Israeli soldiers approach the stage then stop and watch, just as Hamlet plots to put on a play that will force the murderous Claudius to confront his guilt. Suddenly, Hamlet neatly aligns with the situation of the Palestinian players: the oppressed challenging their oppressors through the act of staging a performance. It’s a deeply satisfying climax to an intelligent novel.

In his introduction to the play in the Riverside Shakespeare (2nd ed., p. 1187), Frank Kermode comments:

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A thorough and thoughtful exploration of the role of art in the political arena.”— Kirkus, starred review ISABELLA HAMMAD: Yes, exactly. I was on a residency and just writing and writing, and I kind of came upon her. Hammad's characters contend with displacement, ancestral home, authenticity, and the shimmering possibility of finding yourself in unlikely places. Sisterhood, soul-searching, and Shakespeare—what more could you ask for?" — Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 HAMMAD: Wael is a pop star. He is a cousin of Mariam’s and he is a refugee who lives in the West Bank. He’s been cast as Hamlet despite the fact that he has no experience of acting. Largely, because Mariam is hoping to draw a big crowd, and Wael can draw a big crowd. So, this is Wael during the discussion after reading the “To be or not to be” speech.

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 Furrows I loved particularly the way in which, what seemed to me a kind of metafictional, metatheatrical element of the play. In that it is a—it follows the model of a revenge tragedy. But you have an unwilling—he’s unwillingly playing the part. This, sort of, fighting the role and then committing to it once he kills Polonius.

BOGAEV: Oh, that is— And there’s a wonderful scene about Shakespeare and Palestinian theater in your book in which the director, Mariam, keeps saying, “Don’t be afraid of Shakespeare.” And the actors all start saying, “Oh yeah, [expletive] Shakespeare.” And someone says, “There’s a version of Hamlet in Arabic that has a happy ending.” Is that true?

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