Crossing Embers

Author: Badria Al Shihhi
Translator: Sawad Hussain

Widowed at a young age, Zahra finds herself being forced into a hasty marriage to her cousin. Having been conditioned by her family and society to perennially obey the society’s diktats, taking destiny into her own hands seems nigh impossible. Her radical decision to do so takes her on the journey of discovery from an Omani village perched atop a mountain to the East African coast. But of more importance than her physical journey through space is her internal one: of how far Zahra has to go to be free from the shackles of discrimination to finally find her place in the world, and what that search for independence holds for her.