The Omani writer's novel "Bitter Orange Tree" continues to be successful, having been named best book of the year by "Time Magazine" and "The New Yorker". It has now been shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award.
Jokha Alharthi is the first Omani woman author whose novel has been translated into English. The same novel, Heavenly Bodies, also won the Man Booker International Prize, as well as the Lagardère Foundation and Arab World Institute Prize for Arabic Literature. Jokha Alharthi is the author of two previous collections of short stories, a children's book and three novels in Arabic. Fluent in English, she completed a PhD in classical Arabic poetry in Edinburgh and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat. She was shortlisted for the Sahikh Zayed Award for Young Writers and her short stories have been published in English, German, Italian, Korean and Serbian.