Celestial Bodies

Winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize

Celestial Bodies is set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada.

These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society, slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present.

Elegantly structured and taut, Celestial Bodies is a coiled spring of a novel, telling of Oman's coming-of-age through the prism of one family's losses and loves.

'Complex and tangled . . . the glimpses into a culture relatively little known in the west are fascinating.' — The Guardian
'A book to win over the head and the heart in equal measure, worth lingering over' — Bettany Hughes, Man Booker International Judge
'A beautifully achieved account of lives pulling at the edges of change.' — The Irish Times
'Blends the rhythms of daily life with magic and legend.' — Muhammad Barrada
'Delivers the reader immediately into the world of the marginal, forgotten, most subaltern sectors of society.' — Ibrahim al-Hajari

ISBN: 9781760529413 | Published: September 2019 | Trade paperback | 256 pages