Celestial Bodies

Availability:
Ebook in format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order

DRM:
Open - No Protection

Publication Year:
2019

ISBN-13: 9781487007928

<p><strong>The first Arabic-language winner of the Man Booker International Prize, <i>Celestial Bodies</i> is a vivid and elegant tale of a family and a nation across decades. </strong></p><p>In the village of al-Awafi, in Oman, two families are joined by marriage: Mayya, the eldest of three sisters, marries Abdallah, son of a wealthy merchant, after suffering her first heartbreak. Abdallah’s passionate love for his wife goes unrequited; she regards him with a mixture of tolerance and mild amusement. Yet he cannot contend solely with the cares and concerns of a husband and father, haunted as he is by the mysterious death of his mother and vivid recollections of his megalomaniacal father.</p><p>The couple is orbited by an intricate constellation of individuals, connected by blood, by proximity, by deeply rooted social edifices. Those in their immediate families include Mayya’s sisters — Asma, who aspires to a different kind of life and marriage, and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. The three women, their families, their loves, and their losses unspool delicately against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present.</p><p>The first ever novel originally written in Arabic to win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, <i>Celestial Bodies</i> is an exquisite literary creation that marks the arrival of a major international talent.</p>