Further Details

Title: Bitter Orange Tree
Condition: New
Author: Jokha Alharthi
Translator: Marilyn Booth
Contributor: Marilyn Booth (Translated by)
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 1471193926
EAN: 9781471193927
ISBN: 9781471193927
Publisher: Scribner UK
Genre: Fiction
Topic: Historical Fiction
Release Date: 11/05/2023
Description: Translated by Marilyn Booth

Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2023
Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award

An extraordinary novel from a Man Booker International Prize-winning author that follows one young Omani woman as she builds a life for herself in Britain and reflects on the relationships that have made her from a “remarkable” writer who has “constructed her own novelistic form” (James Wood, The New Yorker).

‘Alharthi makes lyrical shifts between past and present, memory and folklore, oneiric surrealism and grimy realism.’ Guardian

[A] stirring tale of a woman who battles every social and religious constraint. The juxtaposition with the narrator’s reflections on modern life and the speed of change is brilliantly judged in Marilyn Booth’s agile translation from Arabic.’ The Observer

Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can’t help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Aamir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just after Zuhour left the Arabian Peninsula.
 
As the historical narrative of Bint Aamir’s challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhour’s isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips, and dreams mingle with memories.
 
The eagerly awaited new novel by the winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman’s attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish.

Language: English
Country/Region of Manufacture: GB
Item Height: 198mm
Item Length: 130mm
Item Width: 14mm
Release Year: 2023

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