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.
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.
Title: Celestial Bodies
Author: Jokha Alharthi
ISBN: 9781912240166
Binding:
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Publication Date: 2018-06-21
Number of Pages: 320
Weight: 0.2801 kg
Brings a distinctive and important new voice to world literature.
* The Irish Times *
A richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured.
* The Man Booker International Prize judges *
Fascinating.
* The Guardian *
Alharthi has a strong narrative gift, transporting the reader into all the intimacies of a close-knit family group.
* The Bay Magazine *
It skilfully builds suspense by creating Aha! moments as characters come to better understand their pasts.
-- Marcia Lynx Qualey * The National *
Finished it in a couple of sittings, addictive, compelling, informative and completely fascinating to read! Definitely recommend it, fingers crossed it appears on the short list too.
-- Fiona Sharp * Independent Book Reviews *
A beautifully written and very moving story.
-- Nicola Sturgeon * Twitter *
'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 *
