Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| International Booker Prize | 2019 | Winner |
About This Book
The story of three sisters living in the village of al-Awafi in Oman as it transitions from a society built on slavery to a modern state. Woven between past and present, the novel explores love, memory, and the end of an era. Winner of the 2019 International Booker Prize.
About the Authors
Jokha al-Harthi is an Omani novelist and the first Arab woman to win the International Booker Prize, which she received in 2019 for *Celestial Bodies*. Born in Oman in 1978, she holds a PhD in classical Arabic poetry from the University of Edinburgh. Her fiction explores the sweeping changes in Omani society across generations, particularly the lives of women before and after the abolition of slavery.
Marilyn Booth is a scholar and translator of Arabic literature, holding the Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Oxford University. She translated Jokha al-Harthi's *Celestial Bodies*, which won the International Booker Prize in 2019. Her translations include works by Huda Barakat and Salwa Bakr.
