Honey Hunger: A Novel

WINNER OF THE 2025 SAIF GHOBASH BANIPAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC LITERARY TRANSLATION 

"An evocative, unpredictable novel."—Words Without Borders

A breathtaking novel of longing, uncertainty, and ultimately of hope

Azzan is a beekeeper in a rural community in Oman. Devoted to tending his bees and searching for wild hives, he encounters Thamna, a lone shepherd woman, on a mountain slope and is captivated by her and her honey-colored eyes.

Across the breathtaking vistas of Oman’s remote mountains and plains, Azzan’s troubled past and present unfold. A disappointment to his family, he turns to drink, and ultimately discovers the healing power of his beekeeping, before an accident in which he loses all.

Zahran Alqasmi’s masterful novel thrums forward with a subtle momentum. His lucid, poetic writing conveys a visceral sense of time and place, of the fragile ecologies inhabited by both bees and humans alike, in this intense and compelling novel of loss and hope.

About the Author :

Zahran Alqasmi is an Omani poet and novelist, born in the Sultanate of Oman in 1974. He is also a medical doctor, with a specialization in infectious diseases, and keeps bees. Honey Hunger is his third of four published novels and his English language debut. In 2023 he won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) for The Water Diviner. He has also published ten poetry collections and a collection of short stories.

Marilyn Booth is professor emerita, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Magdalen College, Oxford University. She has translated many works of Arabic fiction into English. Her translations of Omani author Jokha Alharthi includeBitter Orange Tree and Celestial Bodies,which was awarded the International Booker Prize. She has also translated Hoda Barakat, Hassan Daoud, Elias Khoury, Latifa al-Zayyat, and Nawal al-Saadawi. Her research publications focus on Arabophone women’s writing and the ideology of gender debates in the nineteenth century, most recently The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt.

"Zahran Alqasmi portrays the inimitable lifeways deep in Oman’s mountainous interior as no other writer does. We can taste and smell the sweet pungency of the natural world that this powerful writing brings forth. In this exceptional narrative, hunger for honey portends hunger for the unknown: Alqasmi’s characters are ever on the move to discover who they are by means of searching for the ever-elusive mountain honey."—Jokha Alharthi, Booker Prize-winning author of Celestial Bodies

"Weaves folklore, ecology, and human desire into a novel that is unlike anything else. . . . the book probes the fragile relationship between people and nature, revealing both sweetness and sting."—Harper's Bazaar Arabia

"An evocative, unpredictable novel."—Words Without Borders

“This captivating novel is a search for hope, longing, love. . . . [T]hose readers who enjoy lyrical books, as the author is also a poet, will be transported to a rich and vibrant world among the bees.” —Tulsa Book Review

"Alqasmi’s poetic descriptions of the mountains and the desert of Oman have been rendered sensitively through Marilyn Booth’s precise translation. . . . memorable and evocative."—World Literature Today

“This is a landscape novel that seems to sit outside of time, technology and politics. . . . Honey Hunger. . . succeeds in drawing the reader into a distinctly drawn landscape and way of life.” —Irish Times

"Marilyn Booth’s translation is a masterclass in poetic translation which remains remarkably true to the original and seamlessly transports the reader to distant mountain landscapes of Oman."—Tina Phillips, Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Head Judge

“Honey Hunger beautifully highlights the connections between bees and people, and it showcases our bond with nature and how we strive to protect our ecosystems together. The author draws a lot of knowledge about beekeeping from his own life which adds a wonderful touch to the story, inviting readers to reflect on both the literal and metaphorical significance of sweetness and the insatiable craving for something more in life.”—Rana Asfour, TMR Book Club

"Hypnotic"—AramcoWorld

“Right from the start, Honey Hunger pulls you into its world.”—Oman Daily Observer

"Alqasmi uses simple, elegant language to describe Azzan’s beekeeping tasks and the dramatic landscape, two motifs to which his narrative keeps returning."—Booklist

"Literary takes on the human experience. . . . Azzan exhibits external quiet and calm, but his thoughts are revelatory, illuminating his ardent passion for beekeeping." —Foreword Reviews

"The storytelling is poetic, creative, and striking."—Al-Quds Al-Arabi