Isabella Hammad in the Shortlist Spotlight

4th May, 2020

Watch Isabella Hammad reading from her WSP shortlisted book The Parisian in our exclusive video:

And read her Q&A with the prize in which she discusses the ‘special relationship between fiction and history’, her inspirations for writing the book, and what she’s reading in lockdown.

Q: How do you feel about being shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction?

I’m delighted, it’s an honour. And I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the other books on the list that I haven’t read yet. I’m not sure if I’ve ever considered myself a historical novelist necessarily, but I believe strongly in a special relationship between fiction and history. And I obviously wrote a book set in the past, which is concerned with the practice of history-making and what it means to have a historical consciousness.

Q: How did the people and times you write about in this novel first lodge in your imagination?

It lodged there at a young age. I based the book on the life of my father’s grandfather, who was something of a dandy, and very sensitive and eccentric, and was on the cusp of adulthood around the time British rule started in Palestine. That combination of facts drew my curiosity early on. Almost all the characters first came to me through oral histories, people’s memories.

When writing anything I get inspired by images and stories that come from outside my own brain. So I go looking for them. For this book I might have done more research than was strictly necessary, but I don’t regret that, it was an experience of its own. I collected stories from the elderly, including family members, and from historians, and I read a lot of history books. I wanted to fill my head with the voices of other people. Sometimes I can be obsessive about accuracy but I also think irreverence is important. At a certain point you need to feel free to play.

Q: Do you think historical fiction can help in times of crisis like these? What are you reading at home right now?

At this point I think all novels are a good escape from the present! But historical fiction can also provide the particular comfort of historical perspective, reminding us that our species has been through big upheavals before and will do so again.

I just started reading Foe by JM Coetzee, which is a retelling of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Definitely an escape.