In Silken Gazelles, Omani novelist Jokha Alharthi traces the entangled lives of two women whose childhood friendship becomes a lasting point of connection across changing circumstances.  

Set betwixt Oman and Britain, the novel explores the complicated inheritance of family, the intimacy of female friendship and the ways people construct their identities through the stories they tell about themselves and those they love. 

Alharthi, whose Celestial Bodies became the first novel originally written in Arabic to win the International Booker Prize, has such a beautiful eye around food, conversation, domestic rituals; the prose is so natural and loving within those things. Translated by Marilyn Booth, Silken Gazelles moves between generations and geographical worlds, examining belonging, cultural inheritance and the quiet contradictions between personal freedom and social obligation. A richly layered work of contemporary Arabic literature, interested as much in what remains unspoken as in what is remembered.

Edition/Condition: Scribner, 2024. First UK edition, second impression. Hardcover with illustrated dust jacket. Light handling wear to jacket; pages appear clean and well preserved.