After looking at the novels on the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, I decided to read two of them, Enter Ghost (set in Palestine) and Brotherless Night (set in Sri Lanka) mainly because in addition to enjoying works by women in translation, I also enjoy novels in English set in other countries, written by people who have had some experience of that culture.
Enter Ghost is as much a semi-lived experience as it is a story to be read and understood. I don’t know if every reader will experience it that way, but for me, many of the places that the novel takes place in, elicited memories of being there, travelling [the 5 hr scenic route (irony)] between Bethlehem and Ramallah, visiting a countryside village outside of it, spending a day in Jerusalem (finding someone who had permission to enter the city to accompany me). A day(s) in the life of an ordinary (is there such a thing) Palestinian.
I expected them to interrogate me at the airport and they did.
This novel brings alive the sense of place and the many difficult and challenging encounters local people have to navigate, in trying to travel from one place to another. For some, like the elderly, it is best not to even try.
Sonia Nasir is one of the semi-privileged, she is able to fly into the country. That is, she is does not have to travel overland via Jordan and cross the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge to enter Palestine, as many do.
Enter Ghost is a story of youth, about a desire to stage a play in one of the most difficult places you might try to do that.
People who live in different parts of Palestine, with different ID’s and therefore different freedoms, different fears, vastly different experiences. Gazan’s, West Banker’s and what they refer to as 48’ers. It is as if they are from different countries, how different their lives are based on the geography of birth.
Sonia is half Dutch, half Palestinian and lives in London where she is a successful stage actor. She is connected to Palestine, through family summer holidays spent in Haifa (a Northern coastal town). While visiting her sister Haneen, she meets her friend Mariam, who asks her to fill in for a couple of characters in the play she is staging, while she searches for suitable replacements. They are staging an Arabic version of Hamlet.
The novel depicts the process of rehearsing and pushing actors to develop into the roles they are playing, while navigating an environment where even theatre is seen as a possible revolutionary act. All the while they rehearse, they are never quite sure if they can pull this off, nor are they even sure of whether they can trust each other.
As well as navigating their own relationships, there is an incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque which further complicates their ability to move about.
Throughout the obstacles, Sonia is coming to terms with her recent past in London, the fraught relationship she has with her sister and with her ancestral home.
The day Michael, the movement director, joined rehearsals, he had examined my body like a tailor; told the directors to leave the room, and proceeded to lecture me about the importance of motivation.
‘Every person,’ he said, looking away, absorbed by his words, ‘every body moves differently from the next person’s body when their mind goes through something. When you’re sad, you,’ he pointed, ‘are going to move differently from the way I move when I’m sad. I can still read your movements, but they’re not going to be the same as mine. But if you make a straight line from emotion to movement – your emotion, your movement – then the audience will not only read you, they will feel you.’
She is 38 years old, mature in one sense and an established actor, and yet it is something of a coming-of-second-age novel, as both the play and the new relationships and the place all act on her and transform her.
As the time this novel was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, the HOME venue in Manchester, UK cancelled then reinstated (after nearly 100 artists protested and began to remove their work from an exhibition there) a Palestinian theatre performance of Voices of Resilience.
There is reference too in the novel, to a turning point in Palestinian theatre history, the staging of Al-Atmeh, ‘Darkness’, a play which as it begins the lights go out – actors are part of the audience and play out all the elements of dealing with this one of many regular occurrences of life under occupation, trying to fix it.
The titular darkness allows the actors to discuss the darknesses of various interrelated forms of oppression—occupation, social backwardness, patriarchy—and the play ends with the cast and audience holding candles to collectively illuminate the stage. It was a raging hit. The audiences had seen nothing like it and they were ecstatic.
The version of Hamlet that is staged is based on a translation by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra translated back into English for the novel, and the language used and those who use it and how they use it is as important as the text itself.
I am not well versed in the play Hamlet, but the parts of the play that are shared in the novel and the context within which they are staged don’t require that the reader be too familiar with it, but no doubt if you are familiar with Hamlet, it will add another layer of understanding.
I particularly enjoyed it also for the understanding it brought to the process of developing a troupe of actors for a play and how the author captured these performances and the emotion they elicited (or didn’t). That is powerful, dedicated and practiced writing.
Overall, as I said in the beginning, I felt like I lived through this novel, which was exhausting at times, but wholeheartedly worth it.
Brilliant choices – IMO, Brotherless Night and Enter Ghost are by far the strongest novels on the Women’s Prize longlist (with the caveat that I’ve not read all of them). I admired this accomplished novel but it was a little emotionally distant for me.
Although I’m always up for a visit to the theatre, I’m not desperately interested in the whys and wherefores of getting a troupe of actors to performance night. Though clearly there’s a whole other dimension to this particular production. I’ll pop it on the back burner for a while.
Great review as ever, Claire. Of all the book on the Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist, this one appeals to me most, and I can see how one might get very emotionally invested in a story like this, especially given the current political climate. The sense of place sounds especially vivid and eye-opening.
Hammad’s The Parisian is one of my favourite books, but I really struggled to get into Enter Ghost. The protagonist annoyed me too much, I think, especially her interior monologues. The Parisian was slow to start too, but it did get going eventually, unfortunately I never got past that point with Enter Ghost.
I assumed there was more to it though thanks to its nomination and reviews like yours.
Thanks for this review, Claire. I’ve just read and loved this book. I felt emotionally engaged with the main character from the outset. I enjoyed the detailed exploration of her relationship with her sister and with Mariam, as well as the broader issue of identity. I loved the accounts of rehearsing Hamlet, the interpretation of the play and meaning for the actors. Also the sheer hard work of day to day life in the West Bank and Israel for the ‘48ers, negotiating checkpoints, who to trust. I was totally riveted. I think this is a worthy winner for the Women‘s Prize. I do recommend Minor Detail by Adania Shibli for another powerful novel about Palestine.
I have Minor Detail as well and will read it eventually, I find I have to space out my Palestine reads, because they tend to provoke memory rather than imagination.
Brilliant choices – IMO, Brotherless Night and Enter Ghost are by far the strongest novels on the Women’s Prize longlist (with the caveat that I’ve not read all of them). I admired this accomplished novel but it was a little emotionally distant for me.
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One of my all time favorites, for sure. So brilliant.
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Oh, I must read this! It would be perfect for Reading the Theatre in April, but I don’t know if I can wait till then.
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Enter Ghost really appeals.
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Although I’m always up for a visit to the theatre, I’m not desperately interested in the whys and wherefores of getting a troupe of actors to performance night. Though clearly there’s a whole other dimension to this particular production. I’ll pop it on the back burner for a while.
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Great review as ever, Claire. Of all the book on the Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist, this one appeals to me most, and I can see how one might get very emotionally invested in a story like this, especially given the current political climate. The sense of place sounds especially vivid and eye-opening.
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Hammad’s The Parisian is one of my favourite books, but I really struggled to get into Enter Ghost. The protagonist annoyed me too much, I think, especially her interior monologues. The Parisian was slow to start too, but it did get going eventually, unfortunately I never got past that point with Enter Ghost.
I assumed there was more to it though thanks to its nomination and reviews like yours.
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Saving this review….and will read it after I READ “Enter Ghost”!
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Thanks for this review, Claire. I’ve just read and loved this book. I felt emotionally engaged with the main character from the outset. I enjoyed the detailed exploration of her relationship with her sister and with Mariam, as well as the broader issue of identity. I loved the accounts of rehearsing Hamlet, the interpretation of the play and meaning for the actors. Also the sheer hard work of day to day life in the West Bank and Israel for the ‘48ers, negotiating checkpoints, who to trust. I was totally riveted. I think this is a worthy winner for the Women‘s Prize. I do recommend Minor Detail by Adania Shibli for another powerful novel about Palestine.
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I have Minor Detail as well and will read it eventually, I find I have to space out my Palestine reads, because they tend to provoke memory rather than imagination.
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