Translator Marilyn Booth and author Jokha-Alharthi receive the Man Booker International prize in 2019 Photo: Man Booker
2019 Booker International prize winner Jokha Alharthi is the first Omani woman ever to have had her work translated into English. Celestial Bodies offers deep insight into Oman’s history through its story of three sisters growing up at a time of change.
Alharti explores to talk about her literary world with Kiran Dass, and what winning the Booker has meant for Arabic literature and for the author herself. She provides vivid insights into growing up in a family which revered literature and classical Arabic writing and poetry, and explains why the novel came to be written, and published, in Scotland.
Although a fluent speaker and writer in English, Alharti worked with her translator Marilyn Booth on the English-language version of the text, and the author talks illuminatingly about how the translated title was decided on. For the International Booker prize, both author and translator receive the award jointly, in recognition of the role of translation in expanding the world’s literature in English.
Omani Women in traditional dress Photo: Flickr / Ophiuchus
The chair of judges for the Booker prize, historian Bettany Hughes described Celestial Bodies as a “richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured.”
She adds, “Through the different tentacles of people’s lives and loves and losses we come to learn about this society – all its degrees, from the very poorest of the slave families working there to those making money through the advent of a new wealth in Oman and Muscat. It starts in a room and ends in a world.”
“We felt we were getting access to ideas and thoughts and experiences you aren’t normally given in English. It avoids every stereotype you might expect in its analysis of gender and race and social distinction and slavery. There are surprises throughout. We fell in love with it.”
About the speakers
Jokha Alharti and her novel Celestial Bodies Photo: Sandstone Press
Jokha Alharthi
Jokha Alharthi is the author of two previous collections of short fiction, a children's book, and three novels. She completed a PhD in Classical Arabic Poetry in Edinburgh, and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat. She was shortlisted for the Shaikh Zayed Award for Young Writers and won the prize for best Omani novel for Celestial Bodies, which also won the Man Booker International Prize in 2019.
Kiran Dass
Kiran Dass, Music Journalist Photo: Kiran Dass
Writer, reviewer and bookseller Kiran Dass appears regularly on RNZ National and 95bFM. Her writing and reviews have appeared in NZ Listener, NZ Herald, Sunday magazine, Sunday Star Times, The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch, Landfall and The Wire (UK). Kiran co-hosts the monthly books podcast, Papercuts. @SteelyDass
Photo: NZ Festival of the Arts
This audio was recorded in partnership with the writers’ programme at the 2020 New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington. https://www.festival.nz/
