WINNER OF THE SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF A BETTY TRASK AWARD WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree “Superb . . . The Parisian makes history, and its actors, live once again.”— Boston Globe A masterful debut novel by Plimpton Prize winner Isabella Hammad, The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence. Midhat Kamal is the son of a wealthy textile merchant from Nablus, a town in Ottoman Palestine. A dreamer, a romantic, an aesthete, in 1914 he leaves to study medicine in France, and falls in love. When Midhat returns to Nablus to find it under British rule, and the entire region erupting with nationalist fervor, he must find a way to cope with his conflicting loyalties and the expectations of his community. The story of Midhat’s life develops alongside the idea of a nation, as he and those close to him confront what it means to strive for independence in a world that seems on the verge of falling apart. Against a landscape of political change that continues to define the Middle East, The Parisian explores questions of power and identity, enduring love, and the uncanny ability of the past to disrupt the present. Lush and immersive, and devastating in its power, The Parisian is an elegant, richly-imagined debut from a dazzling new voice in fiction. Praise for The Parisian WINNER OF THE SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF A BETTY TRASK AWARD WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD A New York Times Notable Book of 2019 One of Amazon's Best Books of 2019 One of Vogue's Best Novels of 2019 An April IndieNext Selection One of Lit Hub's Ultimate Best Books of 2019 One of Lit Hub's 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages “Dazzling… A deeply imagined historical novel with none of the usual cobwebs of the genre… The Parisian has an up-close immediacy and stylistic panache… that are all the more impressive coming from a London-born writer still in her 20s… Exquisite.” — New York Times Book Review “Assured and captivating… Ms. Hammad’s acute evocation of place and personality ensures that we are never lost… This agile writer sets us firmly in place, fixing our attention on intersecting lives.” — Wall Street Journal “Reminiscent of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient and Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong , 27-year-old Isabella Hammad’s epic debut novel surpasses both in its scope.” — New York “Stunning…a lush rendering of Palestinian life a century ago under the British mandate and a sumptuous epic about the enduring nature of love.” — Vogue "Hammad uses the features of historical novels to cut through the familiar dichotomies of West and Near East, placing her protagonist in a rich web of families, political intrigues, and cultural exchanges, and subtly reconfiguring the literary tropes of 'home' and 'abroad.'" — New Yorker “Epic… Because the book takes place in the complicated time and spaces that it does, the narrative grapples with sociopolitical concerns as well as it does the intimate, human ones. It sweeps you along.” — Vanity Fair “[A] lush historical epic with echoes of Stendhal.” — O Magazine “Lavish, leisurely and immersive… The Parisian comes across as both old-fashioned and modern-minded…. Ms. Hammad's command of the broad picture and the filigree detail alike makes this paradoxical tone succeed. One of Midhat's French friends disdains the small stuff since he “was an architect, not a carpenter.” Ms. Hammad knows, and triumphantly shows, that a novelist of vision must be both.” — Economist “Remarkably accomplished… Hammad is a natural storyteller. She sustains tension and suspends revelation skillfully, and interweaves character and theme, the global and the local, with the assurance of a much more experienced author. The writing is deeply humane, its wide vision combined with poised restraint… The Parisian teems with riches – love, war, betrayal and madness – and marks the arrival of a bright new talent.” — Guardian “One of the most ambitious first novels to have appeared in years… Written in soulful, searching prose, it’s a jam-packed epic… Hammad is a natural social novelist with an ear for lively dialogue as well as an ability to illuminate psychological interiority… Hammad is a writer of startling talent – and The Parisian has the rhythm of life.” — Observer “Hammad has an exquisite control on her subject: this is precise writing, measured, and careful… Much of the pleasure of the book is to be found in Hammad’s often strikingly clear, original imagery … She also provides many canny shifts in focus, from a cinematic, establishing wide-shots of a location, deftly sketched, to zooming in on the tiniest, most intimate detail …It is Hammad’s sustaining of both perspectives, the minutiae that make up an individual life and the macr