Celestial Bodies: Winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2019 - Softcover

Alharthi, Jokha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1912240165 ISBN 13: 9781912240166

Publisher: Sandstone Press, 2018

Winner of The best Omani novel, 2010

Celestial Bodies is set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present. Elegantly structured and taut, Celestial Bodies is a coiled spring of a novel, telling of Oman's coming-of-age through the prism of one family's losses and loves.

Review:

'The great pleasure of reading Celestial Bodies is witnessing a novel argue, through the achieved perfection of its form, for a kind of inquiry that only the novel can really conduct.' --The New Yorker

'Alharthi... pushes past stereotypical narratives of Muslim women defying patriarchy, instead illustrating the difficulties of balancing tradition and newfound freedoms. It's a tale that perhaps could have been written only in a strange new place itself.' --Naina Bajekal, Time

'Al-Harthi renders the complicated dynamics of modern Oman, which only outlawed slavery in the 1970s. --Refinery29

'A richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured.' --The Man Booker International Prize judges

'A beautifully written and very moving story.' --Nicola Sturgeon

'Fascinating.' --The Guardian

'Brings a distinctive and important new voice to world literature.' --The Irish Times

'Compelling...' --Women in Translation

`Blends the rhythms of daily life with magic and legend.'--Muhammad Barrada

`Delivers the reader immediately into the world of the marginal, forgotten, most subaltern sectors of society.'--Ibrahim al-Hajari

`This novel is interesting as a lens through which to view an important time in the transition of Omani society' --The Wee Review

About the Author:

Jokha Alharthi is the author of two previous collections of short fiction, a children's book, and three novels in Arabic. Fluent in English, she completed a PhD in Classical Arabic Poetry in Edinburgh, and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat. She has been shortlisted for the Sahikh Zayed Award for Young Writers and her short stories have been published in English, German, Italian, Korean, and Serbian.

• Publisher: Sandstone Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1912240165
• ISBN 13: 9781912240166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256