Author Geetanjali Shree’s novel Tomb of Sand, which is translated from Hindi, has become the first book in any Indian language to win the prestigious International Booker Prize. At a ceremony in London on Thursday, the New Delhi-based writer said she was completely overwhelmed with the “bolt from the blue” as she accepted her prize, worth 50,000 pound and shared with the book’s English translator Daisy Rockwell.
Tomb of Sand, originally Ret Samadhi, is set in northern India and follows an 80-year-old woman in a tale the Booker judges dubbed a joyous cacophony and an “irresistible novel”.
“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. 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.
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 and a feminist.
The Booker jury were impressed that rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries or genders.
The author of three novels and several story collections, Mainpur-born Shree has translated her works into English, French, German, Serbian and Korean. Originally published in Hindi in 2018, Tomb of Sand is the first of her books to be published in the UK in English by Tilted Axis Press in August 2021.
Shree’s novel was chosen from a shortlist of six books, the others being Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur from Korean; A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls from
Norwegian; Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Samuel Bett and David Boyd from Japanese; Elena Knows by Claudia Pieiro, translated by Frances Riddle from Spanish, and The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft from Polish.
This year, the judges considered 135 books and for the first time in 2022, all shortlisted authors and translators will each receive 2,500 pound, increased from 1,000 pound in previous years, bringing the total value of the prize to 80,000 pound.
