Omani Author Jokha Alharthi became the first Arab Woman Arabic language novelist to win Man Booker International Prize 2019 for the novel ‘Celestial Bodies’.
The award also carries a cash prize of GBP 50,000 (USD 64,000).
The novel ‘ Sayyidat el-Qamar ‘ published in Arabic was translated into English by US academic, now UK based translator Marilyn Booth who teaches Arabic literature at Oxford University. Celestial Bodies was published by Sandstone Press, Scotland.
Dr. Jokha Alharthi studied Arabic poetry and did her Ph.D in Classical Arabic literature in Edinburgh and is now a Professor teaching at the Sultan Al Qaboos University, Muscat.
Alharthi has published three collections of short stories, three children’s books, and three novels (Manamat, Sayyidat el-Qamar and Narinjah)
- Winner of the Sultan Qaboos Award for Culture, Arts and Literature, for her novel Narinjah (Bitter Orange) in 2016.
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OMAN