Celestial Bodies

Celestial Bodies

<p><b>Winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize and named a Best Book of the Year by <i>Kirkus Reviews</i></p> <p>NATIONAL BESTSELLER</p> <p>"An innovative reimagining of the family saga. . . there is no doubt that this is a contemporary novel, insistent and alive . . . <i>Celestial Bodies</i> is itself a treasure house: an intricately calibrated chaos of familial orbits and conjunctions, of the gravitational pull of secrets." ―<i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b></p> <p>In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada.</p> <p>These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth.</p> <p>The first novel originally written in Arabic to ever win the Man Booker International Prize, and the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English, <i>Celestial Bodies</i> marks the arrival in the United States of a major international writer.</p>