Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Enter Ghost cover art

Enter Ghost

By: Isabella Hammad
Narrated by: Nadia Albina
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
activate_primeday_promo_in_buybox_DT

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Arsonists' City cover art
Mother of Strangers cover art
So Late in the Day cover art
David and Ameena cover art
Granta cover art
The Long Way Home cover art
We Were Young cover art
The Halfways cover art
The Killer Inside cover art

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024.


After years away from her family's homeland, and healing from an affair with an established director, stage actress Sonia Nasir returns to Palestine to visit her older sister Haneen. Though the siblings grew up spending summers at their family home in Haifa, Sonia hasn't been back since the second intifada and the deaths of her grandparents. While Haneen stayed and made a life commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her burgeoning acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.

Once at Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertude's lines in classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than in Haifa with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many invasive and violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.

A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.

©2023 Isabella Hammad (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Enter Ghost retells Hamlet for now, dropping its readers deep into the contemporary tensions of the West Bank, asking crucial and layered questions... Hammad is a calm and vital storyteller, a writer of real rhythmic grace. (Ali Smith, author of Autumn)
Beautifully written, poignant yet forceful, thoughtful and thought provoking, but above all challenging the reader to respond to the question facing the characters in the novel: how to live under occupation while preserving your dignity and humanity? Hammad answers this question through taking us into the hearts and minds of the characters in the novel and through that into the heart and mind of Palestine. (Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran)

What listeners say about Enter Ghost

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    10
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

This novel intertwines art and politics, love and loss with beauty and relevance. The narration navigated the forms, allusions, and different languages beautifully.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A new favourite author

So beautifully narrated, a fantastically immersive and powerful read. I think the only thing that could have made it better would be more narrators, to add to the depth of the characters even further. Having said that, I felt invested in them all even with a single narrator.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

To thine own self be true

I found the narration very flat and preferred the book, so I would recommend doing in tandem. This should win the women’s prize but I think too traumatic and political for them. Also not every woman’s experience like some on the list. I learned a lot and enjoyed remembering my A level hamlet.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding - brilliantly conceived and written, superbly well narrated

Enter Ghost is a brilliantly conceived and beautifully written story of how a great work of dramatic tragedy can illuminate and give expression to the very real displacement and oppression of the Palestinian people.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Important Palestinian story

This is an important story to be read and aptly timed with what is happening currently and what’s been happening since 1975

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So incredibly atmospheric

This book gently brings you in to a place and time you have glimpsed from the outside but certainly can’t comprehend. The story lulls you into a feeling of ordinary in the truly extraordinary day to day life and how it builds on the story and more importantly the atmosphere is truly skilful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic narrator and an important story.

Will listen to anything Nadia reads! Her voice delivers this book so well.

Enter Ghost is a fantastically told story that feels like a slice of life in a time of turbulence for the characters and the setting.
it makes it gripping, sad, tense and euphoric in moments and leaves you feeling like you want to know where these people go next.

Definitely want to read The Parisian now.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

poingent for the times

I enjoyed the History of the West Bank and the dichotomy of the lives they lived depending on district, religion and nationality. the main character was not that interesting to me due to her self centred nature but overall I liked the story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant Story

I’m impressed by how it’s deeply emotional and political at the same time. It provides a rare understanding of how ‘the inside Palestinians’ or Arab of the 48 deal with their dual identities. It also provides a view of some of the disturbing realities of living in The West Bank.
Great performance by Nadia except for the Arabic reading of whole sentences, I couldn’t understand them although my first language is Arabic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A book everyone should read

If this book had been around in 1978, when I did Hamlet in school; the play would have had a much deeper meaning for me.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!