Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Start discussion here for Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi

About the Book (from LitLovers and the publisher)

In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.

These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present.

Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.

The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, Celestial Bodies marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer.


About the Author

Jokha Alharthi, an Omani writer and academic, is the 2019 recipient of the Man Booker International Prize for her novel, Celestial Bodies.

Alharthi was born and educated primarily in Oman. She traveled to the U.K. where she earned her doctorate in classical Arabic literature from Edinburgh University. Currently, she is an associate professor in the Arabic department at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman.

Alharthi has published three collections of short stories, three children's books, and three novels: Manamat, Sayyidat el-Qamar (Celestial Bodies), and Narinjah (Bitter Orange). She has also authored academic works.

The novel, Sayyidat el-Qamar, translated into English by Marilyn Booth and retitled Celestial Bodies, was published in the UK in 2018 and the US in 2019. The novel was the first work by an Arabic-language writer to be awarded the Man Booker International Prize (2019), and the first novel by an Omani woman to appear in English translation.

Discussion Questions M\(from LitLovers and the publisher)

1. Celestial Bodies, set in a village outside of Muscat, Oman, depicts a culture unknown to most of us in the West. What have you learned, what surprised you, what angered, even shocked, you?

2. Outwardly, women have little, in any, power in Mideast society. But things are not always what they seem. Talk about the kind of subtle, invisible power that the women in Celestial Bodies wield outside the traditional norms.

3. Most of the chapters are told in the third person point-of-view, except for Abdallah, Mayya's husband, who speaks to us in his own voice. Why might Alharthi have made the decision to let Abdallah tell his own story?

4. Speaking of Abdallah and Mayya, when Abdallah asks his wife if she loves him, she responds, "It's the Egyptian films, have they eaten your brain?" What do you make of her response? What does she mean? How does Abdallah react?

5. How are the characters in this novel trapped by the past? Who is trying to escape the past? Who is trying to ignore, or paper over, the past?

6. In what way does the novel hint at currents of change coming to this very traditional society?

6. Much has been made of the book's structure with multiple points of view and shifting time frames. It's even been referred to as a puzzle with each chapter providing a single piece of the picture. Did you find the narrative choice difficult to follow? Why might Alharthi have chosen to write her novel using this fragmented technique?

7. The book's title, literally, means "ladies of the moon." How does this title (perhaps more so than Celestial Bodies) reflect the novel?