What do you think?
Rate this book
Honey Hunger
A breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translatorAzzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes. Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman’s remote mountains and plains, Azzan’s troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all. Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.
292 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 1, 2025
Honey Hunger is the first Omani book I’ve read. I’m so happy I found it through my library. It’s a lyrical love letter to nature, the landscape of mountains and wadis, birds, and bees. And beneath all that beauty is the hum of nature’s cruelty and the grief of loss. I didn’t think I could be so moved or interested in a book about bees. The text presented Azzan so vividly as a beekeeper that it was astounding to realize it was not a profession he’d always had. The writing style was so melodious and perfectly fit the intoxicating descriptions of honey. Senses like smell, taste, and sound were integral parts of the story. As the reader, I felt like I had a stake along with the characters in their quest for wild mountain honey. Their longing also symbolized other kinds of thirst, partly due to the outside world infringing on the small village. Azzan, al-Hataati, and Abdallah were unlikely and entertaining companions. I liked reading about their pasts and discovering how they became friends through the non-linear timeline. The book ended a little abruptly and inconclusively, although not unexpectedly. At least having the characters’ surprising life journeys in mind made it less bittersweet, and I could imagine the characters with just as rich a future.
May 31, 2026
I liked the featured Ta’wibat (poem-songs) at the start of each chapter and the dual-language depictions of nature throughout, Aqabat-al-Nakhla and beyond. Well-presented insights into life among the wadis and mountains of Oman, and the various trees and types of honey found there.
“From sumar tree to sumar tree
my longings sent me wandering
a live coal in my depths”
“Your winding mountain paths call
a figure moving gracefully
glowing like a flower in bloom”
“When the departure comes near
choose your companion well
among those who know”
“Green sidra of the wadi,
tell me did you see the soul's companion?
the one who stole my heart
and vanished”
“From sumar tree to sumar tree
my longings sent me wandering
a live coal in my depths”
“Your winding mountain paths call
a figure moving gracefully
glowing like a flower in bloom”
“When the departure comes near
choose your companion well
among those who know”
“Green sidra of the wadi,
tell me did you see the soul's companion?
the one who stole my heart
and vanished”
February 5, 2026
Honey Hunger by Zahran Alqasmi is quite an unforgettable story!
Set in the Sultanate of Oman, the narrative begins with Azzan, a beekeeper from a rural community, who finds comfort and a purpose to his life by taking care of his beehives. With no immediate family left to call him own, he finds himself transfixed by Thamna, a lone traveling shepherdess.
The structure of this story is non-linear at times and provides us with the backstory of some other characters as well that I found very intriguing and not at all distracting from the main narrative arc. In fact, I think these side-stories greatly elevated the overall book.
As the story progressed, I found myself transported to the gorgeous wadis of Oman with the powerfully atmospheric writing guiding me across its vast landscape.
I could imagine Azzan and his companions, Al-Hataati and Abdallah, patiently tracking the flight of wild bees as the flew away into the sunlight on the majestic ragged mountains, hear the gentle flow of bubbling streams, and taste the deliciousness of the much sought after wild honey.
Even though this English version is a translation from the original Arabic book, Marilyn Booth, the translator has done a wonderful job! The writing is vivid, lyrical, and impactful!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
One thing to note is that the story is in no way a depiction of the lives of Muslim characters or reflective of a religion, rather it seems to have a very culture-specific perspective featuring imperfect lives of imperfect individuals.
Set in the Sultanate of Oman, the narrative begins with Azzan, a beekeeper from a rural community, who finds comfort and a purpose to his life by taking care of his beehives. With no immediate family left to call him own, he finds himself transfixed by Thamna, a lone traveling shepherdess.
The structure of this story is non-linear at times and provides us with the backstory of some other characters as well that I found very intriguing and not at all distracting from the main narrative arc. In fact, I think these side-stories greatly elevated the overall book.
As the story progressed, I found myself transported to the gorgeous wadis of Oman with the powerfully atmospheric writing guiding me across its vast landscape.
I could imagine Azzan and his companions, Al-Hataati and Abdallah, patiently tracking the flight of wild bees as the flew away into the sunlight on the majestic ragged mountains, hear the gentle flow of bubbling streams, and taste the deliciousness of the much sought after wild honey.
Even though this English version is a translation from the original Arabic book, Marilyn Booth, the translator has done a wonderful job! The writing is vivid, lyrical, and impactful!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
One thing to note is that the story is in no way a depiction of the lives of Muslim characters or reflective of a religion, rather it seems to have a very culture-specific perspective featuring imperfect lives of imperfect individuals.
February 21, 2025
Real Rating: 4.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translator
Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes. Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman’s remote mountains and plains, Azzan’s troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all.
Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Does the old nostrum, "still waters run deep," ring a bell in your cultural education? Azzan is the personification of it. He's quiet on these pages. He's still physically and psychically until summoned into action in service to some need. Author Alqasmi uses his stillness to carefully, incrementally, accustom you to the reality of Oman, of a place he seems to assume you will want to know feel and smell and hear, without intrusive human-ness. Gradually, Azzan's eyes...our cameras onto this sparely furnished landscape...show us more, bring us to the places—in the company that hearken to the quiet sounds that we call "silence" in technology's noisy embrace. Azzan's not a beekeeper by happenstance, either as a character or a PoV.
These are the choices that lead you the audience into the creation of an author whose poetry output outweighs his prose, ten to four; but whose prose garnered him the 2023 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for The Water Diviner; I believe this is the immediate predecessor to this novel in Arabic. It is obvious to me that the quality of the vision here is not a chance sport, an artifact of a talented translator's vision alone. That disappointment has befallen me before when a multiple translation career has yielded...inconsistent...results. Being the first of his works translated into English, I could still be disappointed; it just *feels* like a good bet to make, after reading this story.
I'm sure the idea of beekeeping in a landscape as arid as Arabia is overall seems odd. It is an ancient reality though. Deserts bloom, even if sparingly. Beekeepers are not hugely wealthy anywhere bit seldom lack for work for very long. It is a surprisingly mobile task in this story, one that enables Azzan to be see, hear, participate in, a lot of lives in making his life with bees. The honey they make is the life he leads; but it's also large in the life of the people. The product that makes life just enough less harsh to be fun at times for the people Azzan's belovèd bees serve. His knowledge of the lies, cheats, and kindnesses others never even think they don't know about all revolve around his deep and unwavering interest in and commitment to his charges the bees.
It gives the author a free rein to point up character traits in the narrator's orbit and beyond, for good and for ill; is Thamna, the herdswoman he encounters so fleetingly, an object of obsessive lust, actual love, or simply a fixation because of her novelty in his mostly male world? Does his thinking about bees, those matriarchal marvels without a permanent male presence, and their coveted honey drive or lead his itinerancy? If he's led by it, it makes his questing for wild honey that much more about the world he observes so intently; if driven instead, that condition of needing the honey makes his sharply observant eye that of the exploiter, the taker of all the work of others he is not entitled to have. All of these are within this novel's possible meanings.
Azzan's obsession with bees and their care is, while unusual to the US-fiction reader, an outgrowth of his blighted past. He is a recovering alcoholic in a society that frowns on alcohol use. He has never been a success, felt as though he was enough for or even wanted by those who raised him. It is this strange selfness, this sense of himself as needing and wanting but never receiving unless he takes (as from the bees, his compatriots), that is reinforced by the lyrical language of description that never devolves into possession; rather it settles on taking the product without "owning" the producer, on caring for and feeling committed to the bees, the goats, the donkeys and living among them in place of being their "owner."
Is that the place held by the exploiter, the user, the rentier? Azzan does not give off that vibe; I can still see it in the flow of his honeyed words of praise and appreciation and admiration for the bees. It comes down to the sense the author gives all these people who live among the animals they use; they take on the risks and protect their charges from harms they will all suffer from. In return they exert a right to practical rewards of sustenance.
A man who longs for love he is sure he does not deserve and whose object is safely always independent of his custodial care and capable of being just fine without him sounds to me like a man in need of a perspective check; he's fine how he is, too, just busily denying himself the peace of contentment to punish his perceived failings as received from the eyes and ideas of others.
So with all this praise why not five whole stars? Because these ideas and words of beauty and layers of meaning come with a labor tax of non-Western-standard punctuation and dialogue tags. I don't think that's a bad thing myownself. It does mean I can't five-star flag it for all y'all to pick up and devour ASAP. So many won't work this hard. Heck, even *I* had to read some things over twice to choose meanings that would change depending on to whom I attributed the words.
For me that's fun, for most it's work, so four and three-quarter stars seems fair.
The Publisher Says: A breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope, written by an International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning author and an International Booker-prize winning translator
Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes. Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman’s remote mountains and plains, Azzan’s troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all.
Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Does the old nostrum, "still waters run deep," ring a bell in your cultural education? Azzan is the personification of it. He's quiet on these pages. He's still physically and psychically until summoned into action in service to some need. Author Alqasmi uses his stillness to carefully, incrementally, accustom you to the reality of Oman, of a place he seems to assume you will want to know feel and smell and hear, without intrusive human-ness. Gradually, Azzan's eyes...our cameras onto this sparely furnished landscape...show us more, bring us to the places—in the company that hearken to the quiet sounds that we call "silence" in technology's noisy embrace. Azzan's not a beekeeper by happenstance, either as a character or a PoV.
These are the choices that lead you the audience into the creation of an author whose poetry output outweighs his prose, ten to four; but whose prose garnered him the 2023 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for The Water Diviner; I believe this is the immediate predecessor to this novel in Arabic. It is obvious to me that the quality of the vision here is not a chance sport, an artifact of a talented translator's vision alone. That disappointment has befallen me before when a multiple translation career has yielded...inconsistent...results. Being the first of his works translated into English, I could still be disappointed; it just *feels* like a good bet to make, after reading this story.
I'm sure the idea of beekeeping in a landscape as arid as Arabia is overall seems odd. It is an ancient reality though. Deserts bloom, even if sparingly. Beekeepers are not hugely wealthy anywhere bit seldom lack for work for very long. It is a surprisingly mobile task in this story, one that enables Azzan to be see, hear, participate in, a lot of lives in making his life with bees. The honey they make is the life he leads; but it's also large in the life of the people. The product that makes life just enough less harsh to be fun at times for the people Azzan's belovèd bees serve. His knowledge of the lies, cheats, and kindnesses others never even think they don't know about all revolve around his deep and unwavering interest in and commitment to his charges the bees.
It gives the author a free rein to point up character traits in the narrator's orbit and beyond, for good and for ill; is Thamna, the herdswoman he encounters so fleetingly, an object of obsessive lust, actual love, or simply a fixation because of her novelty in his mostly male world? Does his thinking about bees, those matriarchal marvels without a permanent male presence, and their coveted honey drive or lead his itinerancy? If he's led by it, it makes his questing for wild honey that much more about the world he observes so intently; if driven instead, that condition of needing the honey makes his sharply observant eye that of the exploiter, the taker of all the work of others he is not entitled to have. All of these are within this novel's possible meanings.
Azzan's obsession with bees and their care is, while unusual to the US-fiction reader, an outgrowth of his blighted past. He is a recovering alcoholic in a society that frowns on alcohol use. He has never been a success, felt as though he was enough for or even wanted by those who raised him. It is this strange selfness, this sense of himself as needing and wanting but never receiving unless he takes (as from the bees, his compatriots), that is reinforced by the lyrical language of description that never devolves into possession; rather it settles on taking the product without "owning" the producer, on caring for and feeling committed to the bees, the goats, the donkeys and living among them in place of being their "owner."
Is that the place held by the exploiter, the user, the rentier? Azzan does not give off that vibe; I can still see it in the flow of his honeyed words of praise and appreciation and admiration for the bees. It comes down to the sense the author gives all these people who live among the animals they use; they take on the risks and protect their charges from harms they will all suffer from. In return they exert a right to practical rewards of sustenance.
A man who longs for love he is sure he does not deserve and whose object is safely always independent of his custodial care and capable of being just fine without him sounds to me like a man in need of a perspective check; he's fine how he is, too, just busily denying himself the peace of contentment to punish his perceived failings as received from the eyes and ideas of others.
So with all this praise why not five whole stars? Because these ideas and words of beauty and layers of meaning come with a labor tax of non-Western-standard punctuation and dialogue tags. I don't think that's a bad thing myownself. It does mean I can't five-star flag it for all y'all to pick up and devour ASAP. So many won't work this hard. Heck, even *I* had to read some things over twice to choose meanings that would change depending on to whom I attributed the words.
For me that's fun, for most it's work, so four and three-quarter stars seems fair.
June 2, 2024
Honey Hunger was an lyrical, atmospheric read that had a strong sense of place and feeling throughout. I knew exactly nothing about Oman before I started reading, but by the end I felt I had a good image in my mind of its rural landscape and those who inhabit it. It was fascinating to read about Azzan's world and follow his adventures and difficulties. The pacing slowed a little in the middle of the book and my attention briefly wavered, but it was caught again as we moved towards the finale. Overall, it was an interesting story about disappointments, hopes and wishes, and I am giving it four stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
November 13, 2025
Written in the style of the 1001 Arabian Nights, Honey and Hunger takes the reader on a sweeping journey through Oman, richly detailing the lives and experiences of its people. The book is poetic and adopts a deliberate, slow pace that suits its meditative tone. This is why I think it can be a great eAudiobook. While I appreciated the story's initial premise, I found that the narrative wavered, too often shifting its focus entirely away from the main characters and their love story.
March 9, 2025
A great book about hunger for love, companionship, home, community, friendship, and honey. I loved all the details about honey hunting and ber keeping.
I wish the publisher invested into images or QR codes with images of trees, blossoms, and honey described in the book. As a person not familiar with Oman, I had no idea what white honey or all the shrubs look like.
I wish the publisher invested into images or QR codes with images of trees, blossoms, and honey described in the book. As a person not familiar with Oman, I had no idea what white honey or all the shrubs look like.
April 12, 2026
This would be great for a native arabic speaker who lives in dubai. The visual descriptions were fantastic but the plot and character development felt self-orientalising and flat. For city arabs who want a taste of the country arab life.
Also the verbage felt clunky but may be a translation issue.
Also the verbage felt clunky but may be a translation issue.
December 30, 2025
Keep thinking back on this back ever since I read it. Very meditative and immersive. The way the characters perspectives blend back and forth was confusing but also fascinating as a writing structure choice.
March 22, 2026
More like 1.5
March 23, 2026
je zou zo maar Oman willen na het lezen van dit boek
April 29, 2026
Loved getting a peak into Oman. The characters are deep and the slow pace allows the place to become character too.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews