Born in Oman, educated in Edinburgh, and now teaching Arabic literature at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Alharthi made history in 2019 when her novel Sayyidat al-Qamar (literally "Ladies of the Moon", in Marilyn Booth's English translation Celestial Bodies) became the first Arabic-language novel to win the International Booker.
The novel weaves three generations of three Omani sisters — Mayya, Asma, and Khawla — and the men around them, against the backdrop of Oman's transformation from a slave-owning society into the modern Gulf state. The follow-up Bitter Orange Tree (2016; English 2022) is a quieter, more interior novel of an Omani student in Britain mourning her grandmother. Alharthi has done as much as any writer of her generation to bring Gulf — and especially Omani — literature into the international conversation.
Recurring themes
Selected works
- 2004Manamat
- 2010Sayyidat al-Qamar
- 2016Bitter Orange Tree
- 2021Silken Gazelle