MUSCAT: Omanis on Wednesday hailed writer Jokha Alharthi’s “historical achievement” and praised her for bringing “honor” to their Gulf nation after she became the first Arab author to win the Man Booker International prize.
“It is a huge historic achievement for the author, for Oman and for Arabic culture in general,” said Saif Al-Rahbi, an Omani poet, essayist and writer.
“It shows that Omani literature is moving along,” he told AFP.
Alharthi, 40, received the prestigious prize during a ceremony Tuesday in London for her novel “Celestial Bodies” which depicts life in her small Gulf nation.
The 50,000-pound (57,000 euro, $64,000) Man Booker International prize celebrates translated fiction from around the world and is divided equally between the author and the translator.
The judges said Celestial Bodies was “a richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight into a society in transition and into lives previously obscured.”
It tells the story of three sisters who witness the slow pace of development in Omani society during the 20th century.
“I am thrilled that a window has been opened to the rich Arabic culture,” Alharthi told AFP after the ceremony at the Roundhouse in London.
“Oman inspired me but I think international readers can relate to the human values in the book — freedom and love,” she said.
The jury praised an “elegantly structured and taut” novel which “tells of Oman’s coming-of-age through the prism of one family’s losses and loves.”
The director general of Oman’s culture ministry, Said bin Sultan Al-Bussaidi, agreed.
The novel, he said, shows that Alharthi’s work “reflects maturity and has reached an international level.”
“It is an honor for each and every Omani man and woman... (and the prize) will help spread Omani literature across the world,” he added.
Alharthi is the author of two previous collections of short fiction, a children’s book and three novels in Arabic.
She studied classical Arabic poetry at Edinburgh University and teaches at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat.
In an interview with the BBC at the weekend, Alharthi said she had wanted for a “very long time to write a book about life in Oman (but) couldn’t when she was actually in Oman.”
“But when I went to Edinburgh, the first year was difficult for me, homesickness, cold, so I felt that I need to go back to warmth and feel something from home,” she said.
“Actually writing saved me.”
Her prize-winning novel — which the Guardian newspaper said offers “glimpses into a culture relatively little known in the west” — came out in 2010.
Alharthi said on Tuesday that the novel touches on the history of the slave trade in Oman, an absolute monarchy where Sultan Qaboos, who has ruled since 1970, has been pushing for reform.
For one expert of Arabic and Middle Eastern literature, it could be a game changer for novels emerging from the region.
“It has the potential to orient publishing away from the Arabic novel as answering the question ‘what can we learn about them?’ and toward the Arabic novel as a work of art,” said Marcia Lynx Qualey, editor of ArabLit Quarterly.
“The surge in translation of Arabic-language novels is already in progress, but I think this re-orients publishers somewhat,” she told AFP.
Qualey said there “is definitely a growing interest in works by Gulf authors.”
“In Kuwait, Oman, Saudi, and elsewhere there are authors writing on issues of class, domestic violence, slavery, racism, patriarchy, power, and other issues that are of global interest,” she added.
Celestial Bodies was translated by US academic Marilyn Booth, who teaches Arabic literature at Oxford University.
Jury chair Bettany Hughes said the novel showed “delicate artistry and disturbing aspects of our shared history.”
Omanis praise compatriot for 'historic' Man Booker literature prize
Omanis praise compatriot for 'historic' Man Booker literature prize
Over 4,000 participate in second World Athletics-certified marathon in Karachi
- Athletes from Poland, Germany, Japan and other countries take part in marathon event
- The event featured Marathon (42.195 KM), Marathon Relay, Half Marathon (21.0975 KM) and 5KM Fun Race
KARACHI: At least 4,000 people from all walks of life took part in an annual marathon event, accredited by the World Athletics and held in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Sunday, its organizer said.
The event kicked off on Sunday morning from the city’s Nishan-e-Pakistan monument at Sea View. It featured five types of marathons, such as the Full Marathon (42.195km) the Half-Marathon (21.1 km), the Relay Marathon, a team of four participants for 42.2km (10.5km run, 10.5km run, 10.5km run, 10.5km run and the Fun Run, a 5 km run.
Athletes hailing from Poland, Germany, Japan and many others participated in the event, Sports in Pakistan, one of the organizers of the event, said in a press release. The marathon’s certification by the World Rankings Competition ensured a world-class experience for all participants, it added.
“We are delighted with the overwhelming success of the Karachi Marathon 2025,” Shoaib Nizami, CEO of Sports in Pakistan, said.
“The event has emerged as a testament to Karachi’s unwavering resilience and warm hospitality and we extend our sincerest gratitude to our participants, sponsors, and partners for their invaluable support.”
The top performers in each category were:
Marathon Category:
- Male Winner (1st Prize): Israr Muhammad (Pakistan) – Time: 2:30:13 won Rs. 500,000/
- Male Winner (2nd Prize): Muhammad Riaz (Pakistan) – 2:32:13 won Rs. 250,000/
- Female Winner (1st Prize): Enub Khan (Pakistan) – 3:47:49 won Rs. 500,000/
- Female Winner (2nd Prize): Uzma Abid (Pakistan) – 4:01:13 won Rs. 250,000/
Half Marathon Category:
- Male Winner (1st Prize): Muhammad Ajhtar (Pakistan) – Time: 1:12:08 won Rs. 50,000/
- Second Runner-up Male (2nd Prize): Qasim Bajwa (Pakistan) – 1:12:52 won Rs. 40,000/
- Female Winner (1st Prize): Mumtaz Naimat – 1:43:26 won Rs. 50,000/
- Second Runner-up Female (2nd Prize): Dua Nazakat (Pakistan) – 1:51:45 won Rs. 40,000/
The city saw its first-ever World Athletics-certified marathon last year in January 2024 where hundreds of people from all walks of life participated.
Pic Group president David Sinapian discusses French brand’s expansion and Gulf success
DUBAI: With three Michelin stars at their flagship restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, France, the president of Pic Group, David Sinapian, and his wife and celebrated chef Anne-Sophie Pic are on a mission to take French culinary genius to the world.
After entering a long-term partnership with French luxury label Dior to open Dior Cafes around the world — starting with two outposts in Japan in December 2024 — Pic and Sinapian have their sights set on the Gulf.
“We have almost reached the potential for development of the catering business in Saudi Arabia, and I believe that the future holds great opportunities for the industry in the Kingdom. It is a no-brainer,” Sinapian told Arab News en Francais recently, three years after the Pic Group hosted a pop-up restaurant in AlUla.
Meanwhile, in the UAE, the group opened La Dame de Pic Dubai at the city’s swanky One&Only Zaabeel hotel in 2024, nabbing a Michelin star in the 2024 guide and being voted the World’s Best New Restaurant 2024 at the fifth annual World Culinary Awards.
“I have witnessed an evolution at a pace that continues to surprise me ... and that’s what characterizes business in the Emirates,” Sinapian said of the famously fast-paced food and beverage industry in the city.
“You can be in fashion one moment and quickly out of it the next, because the market changes, and if you can’t adapt, you’re left behind,” he added.
The Pic Group’s international accolades are the latest in a long list of culinary nods for a brand founded in the late 19th century.
The precursor to Maison Pic, Cafe-Restaurant du Pin opened its rather more humble doors in 1889, with Pic’s great grandmother cooking ingredients hunted and farmed by her husband. Pic’s grandfather, Andre, then took over the family restaurant and earned it three Michelin stars in 1934.
Over the decades, Maison Pic lost and gained stars with the most recent blow being dealt after Pic’s father Jacques died in 1992 — the restaurant lost its third star in 1995 before Sophie-Anne returned in 1997 to head up the kitchen. After 10 years of creating memorable dishes in the restaurant, she gained back the third star in 2007.
“We began to build an ecosystem together and expand our business by opening other restaurants,” Sinapian told Arab News of the period that followed.
In 2009, they cut the ribbon on Pic au Beau-Rivage Palace in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“I was in charge of building the project in terms of identity, design and team building, while Anne-Sophie began to create a new menu using Swiss products,” Sinapian said, explaining their working relationship.
The Pic name then expanded its activity internationally, with openings in Paris, London, Singapore, Megeve, Hong Kong, and Dubai alongside its projects in Japan.
A new Monsieur Dior restaurant opening in Osaka, Japan, in 2025, will be orchestrated by the French chef.
“Anne-Sophie has had an affinity for Japan for a very long time, and so have I. It’s the love she has for tea, the products, and Japanese refinement,” Sinapian said.
French Algerian actress Sofia Boutella begins year with ‘SAS Rogue Heroes’
DUBAI: French Algerian actress Sofia Boutella started the new year on a high note with the premiere of season two of the BBC series “SAS Rogue Heroes.”
“Happy New … SAS season 2 is out … and Happy New Year,” she wrote on Instagram this week, sharing on-set pictures of herself and her co-stars from the military drama, which chronicles the exploits of the British Army’s special forces unit.
Series two, created by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”), picks up with British troops in the spring of 1943 during World War II.
Returning for the sequel are actors Jack O’Connell, Connor Swindells, Dominic West and Sofia Boutella, who reprises her role as French intelligence agent Eve Mansour.
Commissioned by the BBC, the show is based on Ben Macintyre’s best-selling book of the same name, with season two having been directed by Stephen Woolfenden.
Boutella most recently starred “The Killer’s Game,” which hit cinemas in September, and Netflix’s “Rebel Moon — Part 2: The Scargiver.”
In the sci-fi adventure — a sequel to last year’s “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire” — a peaceful colony on the edge of a galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of a tyrannical ruling force.
Kora, played by Boutella, has assembled a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants and orphans of war from different worlds.
Boutella drew on her history as an immigrant. She grew up in Algeria during its civil war and later moved to France and found herself navigating the complexities of adapting to a different culture.
“Having left Algeria young, when I go back there I don’t feel like I belong to Algeria. And then, in France, I don’t feel like I belong to France because I didn’t grow up there,” she told Arab News in a previous interview.
Boutella has learned to embrace her rootlessness, though. “I feel like I belong to this planet. I have the freedom to travel wherever I want, without any limitation,” she said. “But sometimes, I miss the proximity and attachment that people have to their country.”
Kora was not Algiers-born Boutella’s first role as a sword-wielding extraterrestrial. The actress, who at the age of 10 fled to Paris with her family during the Algerian civil war, is known for her breakout performance in the Oscar-nominated film, “Star Trek Beyond,” in which she portrayed the fierce alien warrior, Jaylah.
What We Are Reading Today: South Sudan: The Untold Story
Author: Hilde F. Johnson
South Sudan was granted independence and became the world’s newest country. Yet just two-and-a-half years after this momentous decision, the country was in the grips of renewed civil war and political strife.
In this book, Hilde F. Johnson provides an unparalleled insider’s account of South Sudan’s descent from the ecstatic celebrations of July 2011 to the outbreak of the disastrous conflict in December 2013 and the early, bloody phase of the fighting.
Johnson’s personal and private contacts at the highest levels of government, accompanied by her deep knowledge of the country and its history, make this a unique eyewitness account of the turbulent first three years of the world’s newest – and yet most fragile – country.
REVIEW: ‘Squid Game’ enters a holding pattern
- Second season of the hit Netflix show feels tentative, ahead of its upcoming finale
LONDON: The success of “Squid Game” in 2021 made a second season an inevitability, rather than a mere possibility proffered by a hopeful epilogue scene. But because this smash-hit show came out of South Korea, there was also an optimistic air to its steadily approaching release — could this addictively bleak dystopian thriller sidestep a lot of the Hollywood pitfalls and deliver a second season that was at least the equal of the first?
Although it’s a sidestep of its own, the answer is… we’re not sure yet. And that’s because, although it’s billed as season two, these seven new episodes were shot back-to-back with season three (coming in 2025 and confirmed to be the last). So what you’re essentially getting here is the setup for the big finale still to come. That perhaps explains why, though the first season dropped viewers into the murderous titular competition pretty quickly, the actual ‘game’ of the second season of “Squid Game” doesn’t start until midway through the third episode. Before that, we’re reintroduced to main protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-Jae, still far and away the best thing about the show). Having won the first season’s brutal series of children’s games (for which the losers’ penalty is death), Gi-hun is spending his reward money trying to bring down the organizers of the competition, teaming up with season one detective Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon) in an attempt to topple the shady cartel that is pressganging cash-strapped Koreans into murdering each other for money. When his plan to catch the game’s Front Man fails, he instead joins the latest intake, intent on helping the contestants escape with their lives.
It’s an odd choice to spend so long building up to the competition — and even dallying on whether it can be proved it even exists — when that’s what viewers are here for. Once the games get going, “Squid Game” is as breathless and shocking as ever, and with a new cast of characters, there are fresh backstories to mine and some pretty pointed social commentary on greed, capitalism and social care (Korean commentators have suggested that the subtitles miss a few of the nuances of the script, which may be why some of the satire seems a little on the nose). Perhaps acknowledging what audiences will remember, there’s also a few decent twists that deserve to remain a surprise.
But while season two of “Squid Game” is still great television, there’s no small amount of bloat here — and a sense of treading water for the final round still to come.
