November Book Club

Date: Tuesday, November 19

Time: 7 pm

Registration fee: FREE

At Kutubna’s Book Club, you can discover new books, authors, and genres, and connect with other readers at the same time.

This month's pick is Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi.

Celestial Bodies is 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.

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.

You can purchase this book here or at our bookstore.

Jokha Alharthi was born in 1978. She studied in Oman and in the UK, obtaining her PhD in classical Arabic literature from Edinburgh University. She works as associate professor in the Arabic department at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat. She is the author of ten books, including two collections of short stories, two children’s books, and three novels. Her 2016 novel Narinjah won the Sultan Qaboos Award for culture, art and literature. Her first novel, Celestial Bodies, translated into English by Marilyn Booth and published by Sandstone Press, received the 2019 Man Booker International Prize.