Celestial Bodies

"Celestial Bodies" is a novel for which the Omani writer Joha Al-Harthi was awarded the International Booker Prize in 2019.

On a plane flying from Oman to Frankfurt, the merchant Abdullah thinks about his relatives, remembers his father who kept him under tight control, and ponders his wife Miya, who never truly loved him, and their daughter, who recently broke off an engagement. He thinks about Zarif, the black slave concubine who replaced his mother. We will soon learn that Miya really didn’t want to marry Abdullah. Once, she had been in love with someone else—a man she didn’t know.

And Miya was skilled at handling a needle, but over the years of marriage she came to prefer sleep—where you don’t have to open your mouth too often. There are also her own stories for her sisters, Holi and Asmaa, for their mother Salima, and for the willful Bedouin girl Najia-Luna, who fell for another man’s husband. Even if al-Awaafi is not large, each person here has their own complicated fate, their own griefs and joys.

This novel is an amazing panorama of life in Muslim Oman, enchanting with its quiet depth and Eastern atmosphere.