Jokha Alharthi won the Man Booker International Prize (now the International Booker Prize) for Celestial Bodies in 2019. The story in her follow-up novel is at once epic and ordinary: it recalls harrowing tragedies and petty family squabbles, chaste romances and epochal cultural shifts brought on by international wars. At its heart is Bint Aamir, a woman who perseveres through Oman’s transformation from a traditional rural society into a modernized state. Alharthi’s prose, which was translated from Arabic into English by Marilyn Booth, is at once stark and breathtakingly descriptive. —Andrew R. Chow
Buy Now: Bitter Orange Tree on Bookshop | Amazon
More Must-Reads From TIME
- What a Photographer Saw in the West Bank
- Accenture’s Chief AI Officer on Why This Is a Defining Moment
- Inside COP28's Big 'Experiment'
- U.S. Doctors Can't Be Silent About Gaza: Column
- The Movie Wives Would Like a Word
- The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023
- The Top 100 Photos of 2023
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time