Presented By

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

Contact us at letters@time.com.

Stay True
The Book of Goose
Mouth to Mouth
Vladimir
Life Between the Tides
5 stories
EDIT POST