Geetanjali Shree wins International Booker
May 27, 2022 08:58
Author Geetanjali Shree's Hindi novel 'Tomb of Sand' has become the first book in any Indian language to win the prestigious International Booker Prize.
Her novel titled Ret Samadhi, was translated into English as Tomb of Sand by Daisy Rockwell.
It is also the first Hindi-language book to be shortlisted for the GPB50,000 prize.
Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things had won the Man Booker prize in 1997. The Man Booker prize is only open to Commonwealth countries.
'Congratulations to Geetanjali Shree and @shreedaisy who have been longlisted with Tomb of Sand: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/tomb-of-sand #2022InternationalBooker #TombofSand #GeetanjaliShree #DaisyRockwell@TiltedAxisPress,' The Booker Prizes said in a tweet.
It is a story set in the shadow of the partition of India, which follows an elderly woman after the death of her husband.
'Yessss! Translator Daisy Rockwell and author Geetanjali Shree win the International Booker for 'Tomb of Sand' ('Ret Samadhi' in the original). A first win for a Hindi novel, an Indian novel, a south Asian novel. Congratulations! @TheBookerPrizes,' Bengali writer Arunava Sinha tweeted.
Geetanjali Shree is the author of several short stories and novels.Her 2000 novel Mai was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in 2001.
"I never dreamt of the Booker, I never thought I could. What a huge recognition, I'm amazed, delighted, honoured and humbled," said Shree, in her acceptance speech.
There is a melancholy satisfaction in the award going to it. Ret Samadhi/Tomb of Sand' is an elegy for the world we inhabit, a lasting energy that retains hope in the face of impending doom.
The Booker will surely take it to many more people than it would have reached otherwise, that should do the book no harm, she said.
Reflecting upon becoming the first work of fiction in Hindi to make the Booker cut, the 64-year-old author said it feels good to be the means of that happening.
"But behind me and this book lies a rich and flourishing literary tradition in Hindi, and in other South Asian languages. World literature will be the richer for knowing some of the finest writers in these languages. The vocabulary of life will increase from such an interaction," she said.
Rockwell, a painter, writer and translator living in Vermont, US, joined her on stage to receive her award for translating the novel she described as a love letter to the Hindi language.
"Ultimately, we were captivated by the power, the poignancy and the playfulness of Tomb of Sand', Geetanjali Shree's polyphonic novel of identity and belonging, in Daisy Rockwell's exuberant, coruscating translation," said Frank Wynne, chair of the judging panel.
"This is a luminous novel of India and partition, but one whose spellbinding brio and fierce compassion weaves youth and age, male and female, family and nation into a kaleidoscopic whole," he said.
The book's 80-year-old protagonist, Ma, to her family's consternation, insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
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