The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
Through a young’s man personal journey from Nablus in Palestine (nowadays in northern West bank) to Paris, during World War I to his return in Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence, Isabella Hammad illuminates an important period of Palestinian history.
The Parisian starts with Midhat’s arrival in France, to study medicine at Monpellier in South France. He is falling in love with a woman in France and France in general, and when he goes back to Nablus at the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire has been defeated, the British and the French have defined future spheres of control in the Middle East and the Arabs are starting to fight for their independence. While his country convulses, Midhat undergoes his own personal fight, contending with the demands of his inner life influenced by his life in France and the obligations to his family and his community at that period of rapture.
In 2017 there was the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Balfour Declation, a public statement issued by the British government where they committed to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In the declaration there is a clause that suggests that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”
It’s clearly didn’t work out that way and what we are seeing today is a continuation of the events that happened during the period covered in the novel. The Palestinians are still fighting for their independence and they still haven’t achieved their political and civil rights. Both Israelis and Palestinians are haunted by their history.
The Parisian is an ambitious, and thought-provoking debut novel. It’s a historical epic that captures a man’s search for identity and love and a nation’s dream and fight for independence.