Celestial Bodies (Arabic: سيدات القمر, romanized: Sayyidat al-Qamar, lit. 'Ladies of the Moon') is a 2010 novel by Omani author Jokha Alharthi. The novel follows the lives of three sisters and their unhappy marriages in al-Awafi, Oman.[1][2]
 First English edition | |
| Author | Jokha Alharthi |
|---|---|
| Original title | سيدات القمر |
| Translator | Marilyn Booth |
| Language | Arabic |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Published | |
| Publisher |
|
| Media type | Print, digital |
| Pages | 243 |
| Awards | International Booker Prize |
| ISBN | 1912240165 (Sandstone Press) |
The novel has been translated into over 20 languages[3] and marks the first novel by an Omani woman to be translated into English,[4] as well as the first Omani novel to be translated to Italian.[5] The original novel won the Best Omani Novel Award in 2010[6] and was longlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the 'Young Author' category in 2011.[7] In 2019, the English translation was awarded the International Booker Prize, with Alharthi and translator Marilyn Booth equally sharing the £50,000 prize.[8] Celestial Bodies is also the first novel to be translated from Arabic to win the prize.[4]
Reception
editCelestial Bodies has received international praise from critics. The review aggregator website Book Marks reported an overall "Positive" rating by critics for the novel, based on 11 reviews: 5 "Rave" reviews, 4 "Positive" reviews, and 2 "Mixed" reviews.[9]
Kirkus Reviews described Celestial Bodies as "a richly layered, ambitious work that teems with human struggles and contradictions, providing fascinating insight into Omani history and society",[10] while Publishers Weekly expressed that the novel "rewards readers willing to assemble the pieces of Alharthi’s puzzle into a whole, and is all the more satisfying for the complexity of its tale."[11]
The New Yorker stated that Alharthi "gives each chapter, in loose rotation, to the voice of a single character, and so makes contemporary female interiority crucial to her book while accommodating a variety of very different world views", [12] while The Irish Times commented that the novel "deftly undermines recurrent stereotypes about Arab language and cultures but most importantly brings a distinctive and important new voice to world literature."[13]
References
edit- ^ Wood, James (2019-10-07). "An Omani Novel Exposes Marriage and Its Miseries". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ Cronin, Michael. "Celestial Bodies review: Jokha Alharti is a distinctive and important new voice to world literature". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ Bedirian, Razmig (2020-02-08). "Jokha Alharthi struggled to get prize-winning 'Celestial Bodies' published in English". The National. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ a b Silcox, Beejay (2019-10-21). "The First Arabic Novel to Win the International Booker Prize". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ "'Celestial Bodies' becomes first Omani novel to get Italian translation". Muscat Daily. 2022-10-25. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ "Man Booker International Prize 2019 winner announced". The Booker Prizes. 2019-05-31. Archived from the original on 2020-10-30.
- ^ "Overshadowed Zayed Book Award Announces Longlist in 'Young Author' Category". ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY. 2011-12-14. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ Edemariam, Aida (2019-07-08). "Jokha Alharthi: 'A lot of women are really strong, even though they are slaves'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ "Book Marks reviews of Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, trans. by Marilyn Booth". Book Marks. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
- ^ "Celestial Bodies". Kirkus Reviews. 2019-07-27.
- ^ "Celestial Bodies". Publishers Weekly. 2019-07-31.
- ^ "An Omani Novel Exposes Marriage and Its Miseries". The New Yorker. 2019-10-07.
- ^ "Celestial Bodies review: Jokha Alharti is a distinctive and important new voice to world literature". The Irish Times. 2019-05-18.