Jokha Alharthi

Jokha Alharthi ( ar, جوخة الحارثي) also spelt al-Harthi, is an Omani writer and academic, known for winning the Man Booker International Prize in 2019 for her novel published in English under the title ''Celestial Bodies''. She has written four novels in Arabic, of which two have been translated into English.

Biography

Born in 1978, Alharthi was educated in Oman and in the United Kingdom. She obtained her PhD in classical Arabic literature from the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 2011. In 2010, Alharthi was offered a professorship in classical Arabic literature at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman. As of 2021, she is an associate professor. Alharti has three children.

Alharthi has published three collections of short stories, three children's books, and four novels (''Manamat'', ''Sayyidat el-Qamar,'' ''Narinjah, and Harir al-Ghazala)''. She has also authored academic works. Her work has been translated into English, Serbian, Korean, Italian, and German and published in ''Banipal'' magazine. She was also one of eight participants in the 2011 IPAF Nadwa (writers' workshop). Alharthi won the Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature, for her novel ''Narinjah'' (''Bitter Orange'') in 2016.

''Sayyidat el-Qamar'' was shortlisted for the Zayed Award 2011. An English translation by Marilyn Booth was published in the UK by Sandstone Press in June 2018 under the title ''Celestial Bodies'', and won the Man Booker International Prize 2019. ''Sayyidat el-Qamar'' was the first work by an Arabic-language writer to be awarded the Man Booker International Prize, and the first novel by an Omani woman to appear in English translation. The Man Booker International Prize judges heralded the book as "A richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured." As of 2020, translation rights to ''Sayyidat el-Qamar'' have been sold in Azerbaijani, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, English, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Malayalam, Norwegian, Persian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Sinhalese, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish.

In March 2020 she appeared in a panel discussion at Adelaide Writers' Week, along with Iranian-American journalist Azadeh Moaveni and Lebanese-British journalist Zahra Hankir.

Alharthi's second book to be translated by Marilyn Booth into English is ''Bitter Orange Tree.'' Maya Jaggi wrote a review in ''The Guardian'' which was critical of the novel. She comments, "Aided by Booth’s deft touch, some parts affirm the author’s talent for lyrical shifts between past and present, memory and folklore, oneiric surrealism and grimy realism. Yet structural flaws and an overambitious global reach make for a patchy read." In ''Washington Post'', Ron Charles wrote that the book is an "exquisitely sensitive novel", but that it "spins its wheels without going anywhere."

''Harir al-Ghazala'', Alharti's fourth novel to be published in Arabic, tells the story of a woman who was abandoned at birth. It was published by Lebanese publishing house Dar Al Adab in 2021.

Bibliography

''Manamat'' (Beirut: Lebanon: al-Mu'assassah al- 'Arabiyah li al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 2004).

''Sayyidat el-Qamar'' (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Ādāb, 2010).

''Narinjah'' (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Ādāb, 2016). ''Bitter Orange Tree'', trans. Marilyn Booth (New York: Catapult, 2022).

''Harir al-Ghazala'' (Beirut, Lebanon: Dār al-Ādāb, 2021).

See also

* Huda Hamed
* Nura al-Badi
* Nasra Al Adawi

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alharthi, Jokha
1978 births
Omani women writers
Omani academics
Living people
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Sultan Qaboos University faculty
Omani short story writers
Omani novelists
21st-century short story writers
21st-century novelists
21st-century women writers
Women short story writers
Women novelists
International Booker Prize winners