Recognising the Stranger

Reviews

A clear-eyed meditation on myth, confrontation and the Palestinian struggle for liberation . . . deeply moving . . . Hammad urges her readers to listen, think beyond despair, and speak out Thought-provoking and timely, this lecture celebrates Said's intellectual courage and enduring relevance while highlighting the cruelty in which Palestinians continue to live. Combining both her literary skill and acute power of observation, Hammad weaves together a diagnostic and powerful essay which will undoubtedly be appreciated for years to come Animated by an extraordinary faith in the power of art to return us to the human in ourselves and each other, Recognising the Stranger is a profound exploration of myth, meaning, the novel, the Palestinian struggle and the work of Edward W. Said. The insights she finds into the present moment feel at once prescient and eternal and the result left me changed Recognising the Stranger combines intellectual brilliance with moral clarity and profound resoluteness of purpose. This is a book that calls us to witness our place in history. Isabella Hammad deserves our thanks for sharing it with the world A pitch-perfect example of how the novelist can get to the heart of the matter better than a million argumentative articles. Hammad shows us how the Palestinian struggle is the story of humanity itself, and asks us not to look away but to see ourselves Hammad’s writing burns with fierce intelligence, humane insight and righteous anger. For those at risk of despair, doubtful of the role literature has to play in times of crisis, it is a reminder of the radical potential of reading and the possibility of change Extraordinary and amazingly erudite. Hammad shows how art and especially literature can be much, much more revealing than political writing Without a doubt the most powerful book I have read this year . . . devastating, but so sharp, clear-eyed and insightful that I’d urge anyone to read it The combination of humanism and criticism in this short book is remarkable, and reminds us not to look away from the situation, as a first step towards answering the searching questions it raises Recognising the Stranger is a rigorous interrogation of the power of narrative, its usefulness, its various forms, and the ways it shapes our modes of being in the world. It speaks to literature’s capacity to invoke moments of recognition, and pushes us, as readers, to reconsider the function of storytelling within structures of oppression. It does this with a deep sense of conviction and moral clarity conveyed by a writer who is, by all accounts, a supremely gifted communicator, and we are all the better for it Expand reviews