Celestial Bodies

By: Jokha Alharthi

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2019

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.

©2019 Jokha Alharthi (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd