The book is a sweeping historical novel that follows a Palestinian from Nablus,Midhat Kamal,from about 1914 to the mid-1930s as the region changes hands from Ottoman to British control. To avoid being forced to fight in World War I,Midhat goes to Montpellier to study medicine,moves to Paris and finally returns to Palestine after a few years. The character is based on Hammad's great-grandfather,whose nickname in Nablus,"al-Barisi",means"the Parisian"in Arabic.
Hammad joins a group of contemporary Palestinian authors,virtually all of them female,who write in English,including Hala Alyan,Etaf Rum,Randa Jarrar,Susan Albuhawa and Selma Dabbagh. Their books share common themes:Many of the stories unfold both in the Middle East and the West,and explore how displacement,nostalgia and loss are refracted across generations of families.
ButThe Parisian is among the first to be set in the era before the founding of Israel:before the 1967 war that led to occupation and the displacement of scores of families,before the intifadas,before the Palestinian-Israeli conflict became a political flash point.
Hammad was also interested in exploring a point of view that showed"the complexity of Palestinian life"and avoided reductive characterisations of Palestinians as either militants or victims.
"Any time you write about Palestine it's going to be political,"Hammad said."But I wasn't interested in looking at debate that pertained to the current time."
The book"is painting a specific picture of what happened from the Palestinian perspective,"she said,"but I didn't want to write something that felt like,'This is the definitive history'."