The new novel from the first Arabic-language winner of the Booker International Prize.

In their small, mountainside village, Ghazaala and Asiya love each other like sisters, until tragedy strikes, and Asiya is forced into exile. Ghazaala is haunted by Asiya’s absence; a wound that never quite heals.

When Ghazaala falls in love with a handsome violinist, everything changes. In Muscat, she tries desperately to balance university and the demands of a new wife. Then she meets Harir, whose life, unbeknownst to Ghaazala, has also been changed by Asiya and the mystery of her fate.

Silken Gazelles is a tribute to the power of friendship and the strength of women, intertwining love and loss with deft, beautiful prose.

'A “remarkable” writer who has “constructed her own novelistic form”' The New Yorker

Praise for Silken Gazelles

'A lush, shimmering portrait of a small community in the mountains of Oman, filled with women who love and care for one another, who fight for their dreams, and whose desire for independence and passion charts their course through the world far from their village . . . This book is transcendent’ – Susan Straight, author of Mecca and In the Country of Women 

‘Through a touching, intricate narrative, Alharthi centres women’s relationships and inspects their elastic but fragile nature’ – Los Angeles Review of Books

‘A haunting love story’ - Booklist‘ 

International Booker Prize winner Alharthi’s eloquent latest . . . [is] a worthy entry into the pantheon of stories about female friendship’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Alharthi mines rich material with her details of Omani history . . . A book about searching for love – both parental and romantic – and reckoning with the past’ – Kirkus Reviews