Book Review Jokha Alharthi Celestial Bodies

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2010 - Sandstone Press - Translated by Marilyn Booth in 2019. An important award winning novel, the first novel written in Oman to be translated into English, for which it earned the 2019 Man Booker Prize (an award for work in translation). Though a short novel, it is a tough read as it is not a linear story. Past, present and future collapse in on one another, often in mid-paragraph. Normally this would mean the book is badly written, but Celestial Bodies is very poetic and compelling. It is just hard work for a reader, obliging on us to constantly recheck the family tree on the opening pages and double check just who is related to who. It draws you into a story of several generations of one family in a country moving from slavery (only ended in Oman in 1970) to the present day. Various characters are focused on, mostly in the third person with only Abdallah, husband to Mayya, giving his story in the first person, giving him a ghostly omnipresence throughout events. The Celestial Bodies of the title refers not only to the Moon and stars that govern the skies but the three central women, Mayya (married to Abdallah), Asma and Khala, each seeking love and escape from possessive relationships. There is also London, Mayya’s daughter, a doctor with modern career ambitions, and a name that threatens to separate her from her national heritage. There are scenes of great tension and sadness, Abdallah trapped in memories of being punished in his youth by being hung upside down in a deep dark well that could be filled with snakes. There are characters holding onto their slaves long after the abolition laws, and slaves remaining with their owners as servants and employees. Much of the story is centred on the collision of past and future, tradition and progress, science and superstition. When Abdallah is convinced that a death was due to bewitching, London uses her medical skills to retrospectively point out that poisoning is a more likely cause. A powerful poetic work that will hopefully lead to more Omani literature being released in translation. You have to concentrate hard to read this one, but it is well worth it. This is the last book covered this season in the Worldwise Learning Centre international literature book club sessions at the University Of Central Lancashire (UCLAN). These have been great events and reading choices and I look forward to the new season starting in the late summer / Early Autumn. Thanks to everyone at Worldwise. Arthur Chappell