Isabella Hammad

Last updated

Isabella Hammad
Born1990/91 [1]
Hammersmith, London, England
Alma mater
Years active2019–present
Notable workThe Parisian (2019);
Enter Ghost (2023)

Isabella Mariam S. Hammad (born 1990/91) is a British-Palestinian author. [2] In 2023, she was included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.

Contents

Biography

Hammad grew up in Acton, West London. [3] [4] [5] Her Palestinian father, whose family were from Nablus, had previously lived in Lebanon. [6] Hammad studied English at the University of Oxford. [7] After undertaking a literature fellowship at Harvard University, she went on to complete a creative writing MFA at New York University. [8]

Awards and honours

In 2019, Hammad was a National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" honoree. [4] [9] [10] The same year, The New York Times named her debut novel, The Parisian, one of the Notable Books of the year, [11] and The Guardian included Hammad on their list of the year's "writers of exceptional first novels". [8]

The Guardian described her second book, Enter Ghost , as being "a story of Palestine, driven by questions of identity and belonging." [12] It was shortlisted for the 2024 Encore Award, given by the Royal Society of Literature to celebrate the "difficult second novel" that follows an author's literary debut, [13] going on to be chosen as the winner. [14]

In 2020, Hammad received a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, [11] and in 2023, she was included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list, compiled every 10 years since 1983, identifying the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40. [15] [16]

She has also received a Gerald Freund Fellowship from MacDowell and an Axinn Foundation Fellowship from New York University. [11] She was a speaker at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival [17] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 22 September 2023. She delivered the Edward Said Memorial Lecture, entitled "Recognizing the Stranger", at Columbia University at the end of September 2023. [18]

She was elected a 2024–2025 Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. [19]

Awards for Hammad's writing
YearTitleAwardResultRef.
2018“Mr. Can’aan” Plimpton Prize for FictionWon [4]
2019 O. Henry Prize for Short StoryWon [4]
The Parisian Palestine Book Award Won [20] [8]
2020 Betty Trask Award Won [11]
Chautauqua Prize Shortlisted [21]
Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction Won [20] [22]
Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Shortlisted [23]
2024Enter Ghost Aspen Words Literary Prize Won [24]
Royal Society of Literature Encore Award Won [25]

Books

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References

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  2. Khatib, Joumana (4 April 2019). "A Debut Novelist Explores Her Family's History, and Palestine's". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
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  6. Shotter, James (19 January 2024). "Writer Isabella Hammad: 'It's hard to know where we're going, but it doesn't look good'". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 15 February 2024. Retrieved 15 February 2024.
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