JOKHA ALHARTHI was the first Omani woman to have a novel translated into English. Celestial Bodies went on to win the International Booker Prize and became an international bestseller. Alharthi is the author of three collections of short fiction, three children's books, and four novels in Arabic. She completed a PhD in classical Arabic poetry in Edinburgh and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.

MARILYN BOOTH is Emerita Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Chair for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Oxford University. In addition to her academic publications, she has translated many works of fiction from the Arabic. Recent titles include No Road to Paradise by Hassan Daoud, Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi, Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat, and one of the first Arabic novels to be penned by a female author, Alice Butrus al-Bustani's Sa'iba, forthcoming in Oxford World's Classics. Her translation of Alharthi's Celestial Bodies won the 2019 International Booker Prize.

Electric Literature, A Most Anticipated Title

"A beautiful tale." --Karla J. Strand, Ms.

"Through a touching, intricate narrative, Alharthi centers women's relationships and inspects their elastic but fragile nature." --Akanksha Singh, Los Angeles Review of Books

"A haunting love story." --Booklist

"International Booker Prize winner Alharthi's eloquent latest . . . [is] a worthy entry into the pantheon of stories about female friendship." --Publishers Weekly

"Alharthi mines rich material with her details of Omani history . . . A book about searching for love--both parental and romantic--and reckoning with the past." --Kirkus Reviews

"From the first page, Silken Gazelles is a lush, shimmering portrait of a small community in the mountains of Oman, filled with women who love and care for one another, who fight for their dreams, and whose desire for independence and passion charts their course through the world far from their village. Two girls raised as sisters are separated by a series of tragedies, and forever they seek each other, the bonds of childhood forever etched in memory. The women in this novel are unforgettable, and I can't stop thinking of them. Jokha Alharthi is among my favorite novelists--and this book is transcendent." --Susan Straight, author of Mecca and In the Country of Women

Publisher: Catapult

Pub date: 2025-08-26

Length: 256 pages