Book Review: Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi translated by Marilyn Booth

 

In a similar tone with Celestial Bodies, Bitter Orange Tree (Narinjah, in original Arabic) by Jokha Alharthi translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth is a multi-generational story about women told by women. 

Celestial Bodies, the 2019 Booker Prize Winner, is a history of coming-of-age, told by the intertwinned stories of three sisters. Narinjah, Alharthi´s second novel to appear in English, starts as an account of Zuhour, an Omani student in an unnamed British city, facing the choice between assimilation and preserving her roots. 

The relocation in a new country and culture is an as easy as the relocation companies may want you to believe. Being away from your family, your familiar environment, the places sharing the memories of your childhood is an uprooting experience that no matter how easy or hard is overcome, it leaves traces into the soul. Through stories through, we keep alive the memories and we bring to life our life even. 

We tend to befriend people with at least few similar memories, sharing the same tastebuds. Zuhour is one foot in the new world, another in the world of memories, of women with no time to reflect about their life, but nevertheless involved in their lives and the lives of the other. The memory shifts in Bitter Orange Tree are smooth, working similarly with the way in which memory works: spontaneously, impulsive, persistent but only for short amount of time. 

I may say that I loved this book more than the Celestial Bodies, for this memory fluency literarily reproducing real memory patterns. Also, the women voices were more clear for me, coming from women themselves fluent in the language of their life. The elements of folklore and fragment of fantastic dreams adds interesting twists to the story, takes you out of your normal memory flow to project the image of a much deeper memory lane.

I feel priviledged and grateful for the work of translators allowing to the non-Arabic speaker the access to such literary gems. Otherwise, there will be so many world sealed for ever and the world literary memory will definitely be much poorer.

Rating: 4 stars