Celestial Bodies Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Zār Exorcism and our BookBrowse Review of Celestial Bodies.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Celestial Bodies, set in a village outside of Muscat, Oman, depicts a culture unknown to most of us in the West. What have you learned, what surprised you, what angered, even shocked, you?
2. Outwardly, women have little, in any, power in Mideast society. But things are not always what they seem. Talk about the kind of subtle, invisible power that the women in Celestial Bodies wield outside the traditional norms.
3. Most of the chapters are told in the third person point-of-view, except for Abdallah, Mayya's husband, who speaks to us in his own voice. Why might Alharthi have made the decision to let Abdallah tell his own story?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Catapult. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.