Silken Gazelles

JOKHA ALHARTHI was the first Omani woman to have a novel translated into English. Celestial Bodies went on to win the International Booker Prize and became an international bestseller. Alharthi is the author of three collections of short fiction, three children’s books, and four novels in Arabic. She completed a PhD in classical Arabic poetry in Edinburgh and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.

MARILYN BOOTH is Emerita Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Oxford University. In addition to her academic publications, she has translated many works of fiction from the Arabic. Recent titles include No Road to Paradise by Hassan Daoud, Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi, Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat, and one of the first Arabic novels to be penned by a female author, Alice Butrus al-Bustani’s Sa’iba, forthcoming in Oxford World’s Classics. Her translation of Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies won the 2019 International Booker Prize.