In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.
These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.
The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, Celestial Bodies marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer.
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Jokha Alharthi is the author of ten works, including three collections of short fiction, two children’s books, and three novels in Arabic. Celestial Bodies was shortlisted for the Sahikh Zayed Award for Young Writers, and her 2016 novel Narinjah won the Sultan Qaboos Award for culture, art, and literature. Her short stories have been published in English, German, Italian, Korean, and Serbian. Fluent in English, she completed a PhD in classical Arabic poetry in Edinburgh and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.
Laurence Bouvard is a professional actress and writer based in London and is chief executive of the North American Actors Association. A native of Wellesley, Massachusetts, she also acts in the United States.