PICK OF THE WEEK

BITTER ORANGE TREE

By Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth, Scribner, £14.99 (ebook £9.99)

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The second novel from the International Booker Prize-winning author, Bitter Orange Tree examines love in all its forms, across multiple generations of one Omani family.

Student Zuhur is struggling to settle into university in England while grieving the loss of Bint Amir, a woman she always thought of as her grandmother, back in Oman.

Bint Amir was a central figure in Zuhur’s life, and it is her stor, that is central to the narrative. Flitting back and forth in time, we learn about the woman’s childhood, her struggles, losses, withheld romances and eventual role as matriarch in a family to whom she is not related.

Told from the disjointed mind of a grieving granddaughter, Alharthi artfully conveys the pain – physical and emotional – that comes from mourning missed opportunity, and a time to which we can never return.