Women in Translation Book Club: They Fell Like Stars from the Sky (in-person)

Please note this meeting will be in person at the bookshop. There will be a mixture of in-person and online meetings throughout the year.

The Women In Translation reading group provides a free, friendly and gentle environment in which opinions are shared and new appreciations can be discovered. A place for curious minds and relaxed conversation hosted by poet and translator Annie Rutherford.

For June 2025 the book will meet online to discuss They Fell Like Stars from the Sky and Other Stories by Sheikha Halawy, translated by Nancy Roberts.

Please support the bookshop & the book club by ordering your books through Lighthouse, Use the code LONG-VICTORIOUS-WIT for bookclubbers 10% off.

The book:

They Fell Like Stars from the Sky and Other Stories is a collection of eighteen short stories celebrating the courage, resilience, tragedies and triumphs of Bedouin Palestinian women and girls.

From a woman whose tattoo arouses the alarm of sexual taboos to the young girls whose curiosities of womanhood spark endearment, and from the tragic outcome of a husband consumed by jealousy of his wife's teenage love to the ecstatic love of an elderly woman for the game of football, these stories offer mesmerising portraits of life on the margins.

Featuring beautiful illustrations throughout, They Fell Like Stars from the Sky and Other Stories is a powerful ode to the Bedouin women and girls of Palestine and their spirit for every form of freedom.