Friday Finds: Five Omani Writers

This month’s issue of Words Without Borders, guest-edited by Ghayde Ghraowi and Ahd Niazy write, brings together five Omani writers:

Only one of the authors is well-known in English, although only recently so. Novelist Jokha Alharthi shot into the spotlight after her inclusion in the Man Booker International longlist, and then shortlist, for Celestial Bodies.  She also appears here, again translated by Marilyn Booth. The excerpt from her novel Bitter Orange opens:

I open my eyes suddenly and see her fingers. One by one I see them, fleshy, wrinkled, the nails rough. A single silver ring; her thumb with its thick, tough black nail, preserving the traces of a bad injury that all but severed it.