Herrinnen des Mondes

Translated by Marilyn Booth<BR><BR> Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2023<BR> Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award<BR><BR>An extraordinary novel from a Man Booker International Prize-winning author that follows one young Omani woman as she builds a life for herself in Britain and reflects on the relationships that have made her from a “remarkable” writer who has “constructed her own novelistic form” (James Wood, The New Yorker).<BR><BR> ‘Alharthi makes lyrical shifts between past and present, memory and folklore, oneiric surrealism and grimy realism.’ Guardian<BR><BR> [A] stirring tale of a woman who battles every social and religious constraint. The juxtaposition with the narrator’s reflections on modern life and the speed of change is brilliantly judged in Marilyn Booth’s agile translation from Arabic.’ The Observer<BR><BR> Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can’t help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Aamir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just after Zuhour left the Arabian Peninsula.<BR>  <BR> As the historical narrative of Bint Aamir’s challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhour’s isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips, and dreams mingle with memories.<BR>  <BR> The eagerly awaited new novel by the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman’s attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish.<BR>  

"In Alharthi's world, it's not only the future that holds promise; the past has possibility and opportunities for revision, too." --The New York Times Book Review From Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies and Bitter Orange Tree, a new novel about two Omani women whose unbreakable connection is forged as nursing sisters--a bond considered akin to that of a birth sibling Raised as sisters, Ghazaala is devastated when her friend Asiya is forced to leave their small mountainside village following a tragic circumstance. It's a separation that haunts her into adulthood, and she never gives up on finding a love that might replace the bond they shared. Years later, Ghazaala's family moves to Muscat, where she falls in love with a professional violinist who lives in their building. She completely surrenders herself to his charm and, despite her parents' opposition, runs away from home to marry him. While balancing the duties of a new wife--caring for her husband, their home, and, before long, their twin boys--Ghazaala resumes her education and enrolls in university. Ghazaala's sharp wit catches the attention of another student, Harir, during their freshman year. In the pages of her diary, Harir recounts the story of her deepening, transformative friendship with Ghazaala over the course of ten years. The elusive, ghostly existence of Asiya exerts a force over both their lives, yet neither Ghazaala nor Harir is aware of the connection. From the brilliant mind of Jokha Alharthi comes a tale of childhood friendship, and how its significance--and loss--can be recalibrated at different stages of life.

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2019'A beautiful book, which teaches us a great deal about the swiftly changing relations between men and women and between the generations' TLSSet 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.<BR><BR>Elegantly structured and beautifully written, Celestial Bodies is a coiled spring of a novel, telling of Oman's coming-of-age through the prism of one family's loves and losses.<BR> PRAISE FOR CELESTIAL BODIES'Pushes past stereotypical narratives of Muslim women defying patriarchy' TIME'Brings a distinctive and important new voice to world literature' Irish Times'Fascinating' Guardian'An innovative reimagining of the family saga . . . Celestial Bodies is itself a treasure house: an intricately calibrated chaos of familial orbits and conjunctions, of the gravitational pull of secrets' New York Times'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 ability to move freely through time, the privileged access to the wounded privacies of many characters, the striking diversity of human beings across a relatively narrow canvas, the shock waves as one generation heaves, like tectonic plates, against another, the secrets and lapses and repressions, at once intimate and historical, the power, indeed, of an investigation that is always political and always intimate-here is the novel being supremely itself, proving itself up to the job by changing not its terms of employment but the shape of the task' The New Yorker'Breathtaking. The tale is replete with history, poetry, and philosophy, but also slavery, broken marriages, passion, and not-so-secret lovers' Atlantic

The new novel from the first Arabic-language winner of the Booker International Prize.<BR><BR>In their small, mountainside village, Ghazaala and Asiya love each other like sisters, until tragedy strikes, and Asiya is forced into exile. Ghazaala is haunted by Asiya's absence; a wound that never quite heals.<BR><BR>When Ghazaala falls in love with a handsome violinist, everything changes. In Muscat, she tries desperately to balance university and the demands of a new wife. Then she meets Harir, whose life, unbeknownst to Ghaazala, has also been changed by Asiya and the mystery of her fate.<BR><BR>Silken Gazelles is a tribute to the power of friendship and the strength of women, intertwining love and loss with deft, beautiful prose.<BR><BR>'A "remarkable" writer who has "constructed her own novelistic form"' The New YorkerPraise for Silken Gazelles'A lush, shimmering portrait of a small community in the mountains of Oman, filled with women who love and care for one another, who fight for their dreams, and whose desire for independence and passion charts their course through the world far from their village . . . This book is transcendent' - Susan Straight, author of Mecca and In the Country of Women 'Through a touching, intricate narrative, Alharthi centres women's relationships and inspects their elastic but fragile nature' - Los Angeles Review of Books'A haunting love story' - Booklist' International Booker Prize winner Alharthi's eloquent latest . . . [is] a worthy entry into the pantheon of stories about female friendship' - Publishers Weekly'Alharthi mines rich material with her details of Omani history . . . A book about searching for love - both parental and romantic - and reckoning with the past' - Kirkus Reviews