Bitter Orange Tree

by Jokha Alharthi

Other authorsMarilyn Booth (Translator)

Hardcover, 2022

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Description

Bitter Orange Tree is a profound exploration of social status, wealth, desire, and female agency by Jokha Alharthi. It presents a mosaic portrait of one young woman's attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish. Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, is caught between the past and the present. As she attempts to form friendships and assimilate in Britain, she can't help but ruminate on the relationships that have been central to her life. Most prominent is her strong emotional bond with Bint Amir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, who passed away just after Zuhour left the Arabian Peninsula. As the historical narrative of Bint Amir's challenged circumstances unfurls in captivating fragments, so too does Zuhour's isolated and unfulfilled present, one narrative segueing into another as time slips and dreams mingle with memories.--… (more)

Publication

Catapult (2022), 224 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl

This novel tells the story of a young woman attending an English university, where her friends are other foreigners, some also Muslim, some not. When she hears news that the woman she considers her grandmother has died, she is filled with regret for not giving her more of her time and affection

while she could. While Zuhur becomes involved in the problems faced by her friends, she also spends time thinking about the life of her grandmother, whose life included both struggle and sacrifice.

This is a novel about women living within Islamic cultural constraints, but it isn't a novel about rebellion or breaking free. Zuhur and her two best friends, sisters from Pakistan, are content to live lives as they are expected to, although one sister decides to demand her own choice of husband. And for Zuhur's grandmother, it was never a question of choices, but of making the best of the life she was given. The different cultural perspectives and attitudes made for fascinating reading. The novel illuminated ordinary life in Oman in a way accessible to the Western reader, but not in a way that simplifies things.

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LibraryThing member banjo123

A book by Omani writer Alharthi, that alternates between the story of Zuhour, a young Omani woman studying in a British university, and her "grandmother" Bit Aamir, who lived through challenging circumstances, never married, and ended up caring for the children in a relative's household. Zuhour,

our young woman, becomes entangled in the relationships of friends, rather than establishing her own goals and relationships.

It's well-written, with lots to think about. I liked the comparison of the different generations. I did think that the book could have benefited from stronger plotting.

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LibraryThing member streamsong

Zuhour is a modern Omani woman attending a British university.

Nevertheless, she is a creation of the women she knew growing up as well as a reflection of the women she knows now. All (except for the independent (British?) vegan Christine are dependent on men for their existences.

One of the

Zuhour’s earliest relationships is with the woman she called Grandmother – a distant relative taken in by her family who acts as a nanny to several generations. But she is much more than a nanny. Never married, she and her brother were kicked out of their birth family by her father on his second marriage. She cherishes each child of her new family. But each leave her behind, even in her last days as she pleads with them not to go.

In the present, Zuhour has a Pakistani roommate, from a wealthy and well-born family. Her roommate’s sister, Kuhl, has fallen in love with a fellow medical student. His peasant background ensures that Kuhl’s parents will never accept him as a proper mate for their daughter. And although Kuhl and her lover find an imam willing to perform a temporary marragie so the the two can be together, both know it can never last.

There were two blurbs on the back of this book that I thought summed up the book well. Author Kali Fajardo-Anstine, says “Jokha Alharthi points her pen at some of the harrowing circumstances facing women and girls across the world. “ while author Jennifer Croft says it illuminates “the precariousness of sisterhood in a world that encourages the domination of men. “

I preferred this less complicated story line focusing on women's lives to Alharthi’s International Booker Prize winning novel, [Celestial Bodies].

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LibraryThing member lauralkeet

Shortly after Zuhour left her home in Oman to study at a British university her grandmother, Bint Aamir, died. Zuhour feels guilty for putting her own interests ahead of her grandmother’s health and missing the opportunity to be with her during her last days. In Britain she keeps company with

other Middle Eastern students, in particular a young couple who are romantically involved despite objections arising from class differences.

The novel moves gently back and forth between Zuhour’s struggles with assimilation and loneliness in Britain, and the story of Bint Aamir’s life and that of Zuhour’s father in Oman. The contrast between the opportunities afforded these two women is stark. Zuhour was close to her older sister during childhood, but events have forced them apart. Bint Aamir had far less agency over her life choices, and yet in many ways appears to have been more content than Zuhour.

Jokha Alharthi tells the stories of these women with poetic prose, in a non-linear fashion that leaves much unsaid. This general feeling of vagueness is unsettling, but perhaps that’s the point, echoing feelings that Bint Aamir and Zuhour undoubtedly also experienced.

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