Al Haqeeqa
By Muslim Mirror Staff-reporter
In a first, Omani author Jokha Alharthi has become the Arabic-language writer to win the prestigious Man Booker International Prize.
Alharthi won the prize for Celestial Bodies, a novel that deals with family connections and history in the coming-of-age account of three sisters.
“I am thrilled that a window has been opened to the rich Arabic culture,” Alharthi told reporters after the ceremony on Tuesday in Britain’s capital, London.
Alharthi, will split the 50,000 pound (USD64,000) purse with her UK-based translator Marilyn Brooth.
Historian Bettany Hughes, who led the five-member judging panel, said that the winning novel was “a book to win over the head and the heart in equal measure.”
“Celestial Bodies evokes the forces that constrain us and those that set us free.”
Alharthi’s translator was US academic Marilyn Booth, who teaches Arabic literature at Oxford University.
Hughes said the book’s translation was “precise and lyrical, weaving in the cadences of both poetry and everyday speech.”
Celestial Bodies” beat five other finalists from Europe and South America, including last year’s winner, Poland’s Olga Tokarczuk.
The prize is a counterpart to the Man Booker Prize for English-language novels and is open to books in any language that have been translated into English.
