Jokha Alharthi’s Bitter Orange Tree: A Literary Document of Cultural Transformation In Oman

Abstract

This study investigates cultural shift and transformation in Omani culture in Jokha Alharthi’s novel Bitter Orange Tree (2022). It traces how the discovery of oil and subsequent modernization changed the social fiber of Omani culture and how these socio-political and historical conditions played a crucial role in shaping the character’s identities. While applying Homi K Bhabha’s concepts of hybridity and identity, the researcher analyzes how the characters’ identities, especially the main character Zuhour’s identity is a construct of her contact with different cultures. Therefore, it’s naivete to consider these characters having single and pure identities. Rather, being diasporic characters, they have complex and multiple identities that reflect and characters’ exposure with other cultures and the shaping of their identities. Since Bitter Orange Tree mirrors the changes that took place in the social and cultural domains of Oman, it may be considered a literary document of the period.