It’s 8.30pm. Author Jokha Alharthi is exhausted after two public talks and a long book signing session at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters, held last month in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. “Just too many people,” she says.
Yet, the Arabic writer eagerly meets a young, heavily pregnant fan who had made a long trip to the festival just to meet her. “Such interactions are heart-warming,” says the 1978-born author from Oman, as she settles down to talk about Arabic literature, her award-winning novels and managing her time as a mother, teacher and a writer.
In 2019, Alharthi became the first Arab to win the prestigious International Booker Prize, for her novel Celestial Bodies, along with the book’s English translator Marilyn Booth. The book is centred on three sisters and their love and longing in Oman. Her Her second novel, Bitter Orange Tree, has been long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award, the winner of which will be announced in May. Alharthi has also written children’s stories, short stories and two other novels.
Since her International Booker win, Alharthi has attended literary events around the world. “Sometimes, it’s overwhelming. To write, you have to be isolated. If you are constantly attending events, it’s hard to concentrate on your project,” says Alharthi, who is an associate professor of Arabic language and literature at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.
As a teacher, who must interact with people every day, and a mother of three, Alharthi craves quiet time when she can read and write. “If I can’t find the time to read and write, I will collapse."
So, very early in her life she decided to only attend selective family gatherings. “I am not a sociable person. I avoid social demands,” she says. “We Omanis have big families and many celebrations, but I attend very few.
“People get used to it and stop inviting you, which is a good thing.”
Even as a child, Alharthi prioritised reading over anything else. She recalls escaping the many guests in her home and household chores, running away to her grandfather’s home to peacefully read her books. “I was 10 years old when I devoured Agatha Christie’s books,” she says.
At 12, she read 10th-century Baghdadi poet Abu Al Faraj Al Isfahani’s Kitab al-Aghani (The Book of Songs). The encyclopaedic collection of poems and songs has more than 20 volumes across 10,000 pages, with 16,000 verses of Arabic poetry, which the author said took him 50 years to write. “The book is full of social and cultural anecdotes that may not have been suitable reading material for a 12-year-old, but it didn’t harm me. The book shaped my understanding of Arabic literature.”
Her love for writing began with her diaries, followed by writing short stories in college. She also wrote while pursuing her PhD in Scotland, which also became a means for her to cope with homesickness. “My first year in the UK was quite challenging. Everything was new and unknown including the cold weather,” she says. “I couldn’t connect with people initially, and was faced with the challenge of writing in English for the very first time and that, too, a PhD thesis. But writing fiction in Arabic helped me. It was a refuge, an escape from my problems.”
But as time went by, things got easier. “I realised that the distance from my country helped me see it in better light. It made me understand things about my country, which I was too close to grasp while living there.”
Bitter Orange Tree, published in May last year, is also set in Oman. It illustrates its central characters in the background of the country’s transformation from a traditional, rural country to a modern, prosperous state in the early 1970s.
Grandmother Bint Amir’s life of hardships, being abandoned by her father and stepmother owing to not having enough food, living with an adopted family and serving them all their lives, damaging one of her eyes with traditional medicines and then trying to fix it through modern medicines, speaks volumes of life in Oman during the transformation.
The inspiration for Amir’s granddaughter Zuhour seems to have come from Alharthi’s own life. While studying in the UK, she realises that Amir, an uneducated but smart and determined matriarch, was one of the most important people in her life. But Alharthi insists that her characters feel and think differently from her. Yet, she admits to enduring their agony and frustrations. “The process of writing is inseparable from suffering. I have to empathise with my characters to understand how they think and feel. It is hard to write about these things, but at the same time, it’s also amazing to discover new worlds.”
Her worlds are grim, layered with intense, dark emotions and, at times, are disturbing. Her writing details the deep mental anguish of her characters, especially women.
“Mental health for women around the world is a big issue,” says Alharthi, who grew up in a large family with eight sisters and four brothers. She has heard, first-hand, stories of many women across generations.
“These women have so many responsibilities on their shoulders. They are expected to be a perfect wife, a perfect mother and a perfect employee. It’s too much to expect from a woman, and can be exhausting,” she says. “We need to be more tolerant towards mothers and ourselves and ensure that women seek help and enough help is available to them.”
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WHAT FANS WILL LOVE ABOUT RUSSIA
FANS WILL LOVE
Uber is ridiculously cheap and, as Diego Saez discovered, mush safer. A 45-minute taxi from Pulova airport to Saint Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospect can cost as little as 500 roubles (Dh30).
FANS WILL LOATHE
Uber policy in Russia is that they can start the fare as soon as they arrive at the pick-up point — and oftentimes they start it even before arriving, or worse never arrive yet charge you anyway.
FANS WILL LOVE
It’s amazing how active Russians are on social media and your accounts will surge should you post while in the country. Throw in a few Cyrillic hashtags and watch your account numbers rocket.
FANS WILL LOATHE
With cold soups, bland dumplings and dried fish, Russian cuisine is not to everybody’s tastebuds. Fortunately, there are plenty Georgian restaurants to choose from, which are both excellent and economical.
FANS WILL LOVE
The World Cup will take place during St Petersburg's White Nights Festival, which means perpetual daylight in a city that genuinely never sleeps. (Think toddlers walking the streets with their grandmothers at 4am.)
FANS WILL LOATHE
The walk from Krestovsky Ostrov metro station to Saint Petersburg Arena on a rainy day makes you wonder why some of the $1.7 billion was not spent on a weather-protected walkway.
TWISTERS
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos
Rating: 2.5/5
Marathon results
Men:
1. Titus Ekiru(KEN) 2:06:13
2. Alphonce Simbu(TAN) 2:07:50
3. Reuben Kipyego(KEN) 2:08:25
4. Abel Kirui(KEN) 2:08:46
5. Felix Kemutai(KEN) 2:10:48
Women:
1. Judith Korir(KEN) 2:22:30
2. Eunice Chumba(BHR) 2:26:01
3. Immaculate Chemutai(UGA) 2:28:30
4. Abebech Bekele(ETH) 2:29:43
5. Aleksandra Morozova(RUS) 2:33:01
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
A Dog's Journey
Directed by: Gail Mancuso
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Josh Gad, Marg Helgenberger, Betty Gilpin, Kathryn Prescott
3 out of 5 stars
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Switch%20Foods%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Edward%20Hamod%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Plant-based%20meat%20production%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2034%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%246.5%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%20round%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Seed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Based%20in%20US%20and%20across%20Middle%20East%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Paltan
Producer: JP Films, Zee Studios
Director: JP Dutta
Cast: Jackie Shroff, Sonu Sood, Arjun Rampal, Siddhanth Kapoor, Luv Sinha and Harshvardhan Rane
Rating: 2/5
Salah in numbers
€39 million: Liverpool agreed a fee, including add-ons, in the region of €39m (nearly Dh176m) to sign Salah from Roma last year. The exchange rate at the time meant that cost the Reds £34.3m - a bargain given his performances since.
13: The 25-year-old player was not a complete stranger to the Premier League when he arrived at Liverpool this summer. However, during his previous stint at Chelsea, he made just 13 Premier League appearances, seven of which were off the bench, and scored only twice.
57: It was in the 57th minute of his Liverpool bow when Salah opened his account for the Reds in the 3-3 draw with Watford back in August. The Egyptian prodded the ball over the line from close range after latching onto Roberto Firmino's attempted lob.
7: Salah's best scoring streak of the season occurred between an FA Cup tie against West Brom on January 27 and a Premier League win over Newcastle on March 3. He scored for seven games running in all competitions and struck twice against Tottenham.
3: This season Salah became the first player in Premier League history to win the player of the month award three times during a term. He was voted as the division's best player in November, February and March.
40: Salah joined Roger Hunt and Ian Rush as the only players in Liverpool's history to have scored 40 times in a single season when he headed home against Bournemouth at Anfield earlier this month.
30: The goal against Bournemouth ensured the Egyptian achieved another milestone in becoming the first African player to score 30 times across one Premier League campaign.
8: As well as his fine form in England, Salah has also scored eight times in the tournament phase of this season's Champions League. Only Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, with 15 to his credit, has found the net more often in the group stages and knockout rounds of Europe's premier club competition.
Opening day UAE Premiership fixtures, Friday, September 22:
- Dubai Sports City Eagles v Dubai Exiles
- Dubai Hurricanes v Abu Dhabi Saracens
- Jebel Ali Dragons v Abu Dhabi Harlequins
RESULTS
4pm: Al Bastakiya Listed US$250,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
Winner: Yulong Warrior, Richard Mullen (jockey), Satish Seemar (trainer)
4.35pm: Mahab Al Shimaal Group 3 $200,000 (D) 1,200m
Winner: Jordan Sport, Adrie de Vries, Fawzi Nass
5.10pm: Nad Al Sheba Conditions $200,000 (Turf) 1,200m
Winner: Jungle Cat, William Buick, Charlie Appleby
5.45pm: Burj Nahaar Group 3 $200,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Kimbear, Patrick Dobbs, Doug Watson
6.20pm: Jebel Hatta Group 1 $300,000 (T) 1,800m
Winner: Blair House, James Doyle, Charlie Appleby
6.55pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 Group 1 $400,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: North America, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
7.30pm: Dubai City of Gold Group 2 $250,000 (T) 2,410m
Winner: Hawkbill, William Buick, Charlie Appleby.
