With Celestial Bodies, Omani author Jokha Alharthi becomes first Arabic-language writer to win Man Booker International Prize

Omani author Jokha Alharthi won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize on Tuesday for Celestial Bodies, the story of three sisters in a desert country confronting its slave-owning past and a complex modern world.

Alharthi is the first Arabic-language writer to get the prize and the first female writer from Oman to be translated into English. She will split the £50,000 (US$64,000) purse with her UK-based translator, Marilyn Booth.

Historian Bettany Hughes, who led the judging panel, said the “lyrical” winning novel was “a book to win over the head and the heart in equal measure”.

Celestial Bodies confronts Oman’s history of slavery, which was abolished in the country only in 1970.