Celestial Bodies - Softcover

Alharthi, Jokha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1912240165 ISBN 13: 9781912240166

Publisher: Sandstone Pr Ltd, 2019

Synopsis

Set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, 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

About this title

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.

Review:

`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 this edition

• Publisher: Sandstone Pr Ltd
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1912240165
• ISBN 13: 9781912240166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 243