Isabella Hammad, a British-Palestinian author, drew attention with her 2019 debut novel, The Parisian, earning a place on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list in 2023. The novel navigates the complex nuances of the Palestinian issue through the personal narrative of Midhat Kamal, a young Palestinian sent to France to study in the early 20th century. Through Midhat’s journey, readers witness the multifaceted relations between identity, displacement, and geopolitical dynamics that have historically shaped the fate of the Palestinian people. The Parisian intertwines the personal and the political, introducing the historical complexities of the Palestinian quest for self-determination amidst ongoing challenges. This paper argues that Hammad’s work reclaims historical narratives of colonialism and displacement, constructing a powerful vision of self-determination that challenges dominant discourses. By centering individual trauma within collective resistance, the text reveals how personal identity becomes a site of political transformation.
Şennur Bakırtaş (Tue,) studied this question.