Key themes
- Three sisters and three different relationships to marriage and tradition
- Oman's transformation from a society built on slavery to modernity
- A non-linear structure that mirrors how the past lives inside the present
About this book
Three sisters in a changing Omani village — Mayya, Asma and Khawla — navigate marriage, love and loss across a society moving from a world of slavery and tribal custom to modernity. Alharthi's International Booker Prize-winning novel was the first novel originally written in Arabic to win the prize, and the first by an Omani woman to be translated into English.
Published in Arabic in 2010 and English in 2018, Celestial Bodies won the International Booker Prize in 2019 — the first novel originally written in Arabic to do so, and the first by a Gulf woman writer to be translated into English.
Discussion questions
- The novel follows three sisters — Mayya, Asma, Khawla — each navigating marriage differently. How does Alharthi develop these three paths — and what do they collectively say about women's choices in a changing society?
- The novel addresses Oman's history of slavery directly, including the experiences of formerly enslaved characters. How does Alharthi integrate this history into the family saga?
- The narrative moves between many perspectives and across time non-linearly. How does this structure work — and what does it achieve that a linear family saga would not?
- Celestial Bodies was the first novel translated from Arabic to win the International Booker Prize. What does this milestone mean — and what does the novel offer English-language readers about a literary tradition they may not know?
- The novel is rooted in a specific Omani village but addresses universal questions about love, duty and social change. How does Alharthi balance the specific and the universal?
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