Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative
"Extraordinary and amazingly erudite. Hammad shows how art and especially literature can be much, much more revealing than political writing." --Rashid Khalidi, New York Times bestselling author of The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
From the award-winning author of The Parisian and Enter Ghost comes an outstanding essay on the Palestinian struggle and the power of narrative
Nine days before October 7, 2023, award-winning author Isabella Hammad delivered the Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture at Columbia University. The text of Hammad's seminal speech and her afterword, written in the early weeks of 2024, together make up a searing appraisal of the war on Palestine during what seems a turning point in the narrative of human history. Profound and moving, Hammad writes from within the moment, shedding light on the Palestinian struggle for freedom. Recognizing the Stranger is a brilliant melding of literary and cultural analysis by one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and a foremost writer of fiction in the world today.
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Community Reviews
Ima be honest - I admittedly did not think too deeply about what "And Narrative" meant when I picked this up at the library's used bookstore yesterday but golly is this not for me.
Whom it IS for, actually, are M.F.A.s, to engage with other M.F.A.s about nonprescriptive word salad about real life + death, with the intent of gratifying their egos (after all is politely said and done) upon how "nuanced" and haughty *their* own particular cultural interpretations are, standing against the rigors of all the M.F.A.s that came before them.
Your call to action can't be to "recognize the alterity" of the Other girl what the fuck.
And those of us who've STAYED strapped throughout our mass-organized protests [in metropolitan cities where the Zionists exert so much leverage in capital, that the riot police hilariously turn their backs (and muzzles) AWAY from the "counter-protest" side, whose agitators have been paid per diem to threaten rape and death at women carrying Palestinian banners, instead enforcing the monopoly of violence on us already made to look at lil cut-cock brandishments] resent your bitch ass analogy likening the Freudian defense-mechanism of denial as the same one motivating 2A enthusiasts.
Go busy yourself with another literary device to write a failed novel about, we who want that smoke will do the real work meanwhile.
Whom it IS for, actually, are M.F.A.s, to engage with other M.F.A.s about nonprescriptive word salad about real life + death, with the intent of gratifying their egos (after all is politely said and done) upon how "nuanced" and haughty *their* own particular cultural interpretations are, standing against the rigors of all the M.F.A.s that came before them.
Your call to action can't be to "recognize the alterity" of the Other girl what the fuck.
And those of us who've STAYED strapped throughout our mass-organized protests [in metropolitan cities where the Zionists exert so much leverage in capital, that the riot police hilariously turn their backs (and muzzles) AWAY from the "counter-protest" side, whose agitators have been paid per diem to threaten rape and death at women carrying Palestinian banners, instead enforcing the monopoly of violence on us already made to look at lil cut-cock brandishments] resent your bitch ass analogy likening the Freudian defense-mechanism of denial as the same one motivating 2A enthusiasts.
Go busy yourself with another literary device to write a failed novel about, we who want that smoke will do the real work meanwhile.
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