Paperback : £8.93
Translated by Marilyn Booth
Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
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).
‘Alharthi makes lyrical shifts between past and present, memory and folklore, oneiric surrealism and grimy realism.’ Guardian
[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
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.
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.
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.
Translated by Marilyn Booth
Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
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).
‘Alharthi makes lyrical shifts between past and present, memory and folklore, oneiric surrealism and grimy realism.’ Guardian
[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
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.
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.
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.
Jokha Alharthi is the author of ten works, including three collections of short fiction, two children’s books, 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. Celestial Bodies was shortlisted for the Sahikh Zayed Award for Young Writers and her 2016 novel Narinjah won the Sultan Qaboos Award for culture, art and literature. Her short stories have been published in English, German, Italian, Korean and Serbian.
"Imaginative . . . a bittersweet, non-linear exploration of social
status and a young woman’s agency."
*A Time Best Book of the Month*
"Evocative . . . 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 the first Omani woman to have a novel translated into
English, this remarkable novel centers the evolution of one woman’s
agency, power and relationships."
*Ms*
"Alharthi probes family relationships and picks at the frayed edges
where the heart and society want different things . . . [She]
deftly describes the frustration of being between two
cultures."
*Hadara Magazine*
"In a global literary landscape that has long centered on male
authors working in English, Alharthi and Booth’s work with
contemporary Arabophone literature feels daring and exciting."
*Electric Literature*
"In probing history, challenging social status, questioning
familial bonds and debts, Alharthi’s multilayered pages
beautifully, achingly unveil the haunting aloneness of women’s
experiences."
*Booklist*
"A gorgeous and insightful story of longing . . . The bittersweet
narrative, intuitively translated by Booth, is chock-full of
indelible images . . . This solidifies Alharthi’s well-earned
literary reputation."
*Publishers Weekly*
"Alharthi, winner of the Man Booker International Prize
for Celestial Bodies (2019), uses a dreamlike, nonlinear
structure to show how the complications faced by a young Omani
woman studying abroad merge with her remorse-filled memories of her
very traditional surrogate grandmother."
*Kirkus Reviews*
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