Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell’s International Booker win brings Indian literature in translation into focus

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Announcing their win on Friday morning, Frank Wynne, Irish translator and jury chair, remarked, “…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. 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.”

“This is not just about me, the individual. I represent a language and culture and this recognition brings into larger purview the entire world of Hindi literature in particular and Indian literature as a whole,” said Shree, 64, the author of three novels and several volumes of stories, after her win.

Set in north India, Tomb of Sand is a story that examines boundaries — between nations, religions and genders — even as it follows the story of Ma ji, its octogenarian protagonist, the death of whose husband pushes her to assess her choices. Over time, Ma ji finds her way back into life, shedding conventions and choosing to confront the demons of her past — the trauma of Partition — in an effort to evaluate the many roles she has played through her life: mother, daughter, and, ultimately, a feminist. Reminiscent of the worlds created by Hindi novelists Krishna Shobti, Shri Lal Shukla and Vinod Kumar Shukla, Shree’s book is imbued with an old-world charm and an enchanting disregard for conventions. The narrative voice alternates blithely between humans and birds, butterflies and doorways, and despite the seriousness of its theme, the tone is humorous and effervescent.

“Geetanjali Shree’s exuberant and magical novel Ret Samadhi and Daisy Rockwell’s utterly brilliant translation Tomb of Sand winning the International Booker Prize is well deserved in every sense of the word. It is a narrative for our times, breaking across borders and boundaries to assert the human spirit through the unforgettable figure of Ma ji, or Badi Ammi. It will bring the richness and nuance of contemporary Hindi literature to another wider readership. I am utterly delighted for them and for us. Good things are happening around us in literature in the middle of all the darkness and despair and we all deserve to congratulate ourselves for Geetanjali and Daisy Rockwell’s win,” said novelist Namita Gokhale, one of the organisers of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF). Shree will be participating in the London edition of the JLF this year.

Literary agent Kanishka Gupta, who represents Rockwell globally, said the International Booker win is a huge milestone for Indian literature. “Since its publication, the book had created a buzz among reading groups and well-regarded bookstagrammers, but it is quite sad that a book of this stature, even after being shortlisted, got so little attention from the mainstream media in the West. This win will now change the way literature in Indian languages is viewed by the West.”

The Vermont-based Rockwell, a painter, writer and translator who has translated a number of Hindi and Urdu classics such as Upendranath Ashk’s Falling Walls (2015), Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas (2016), and Khadija Mastur’s The Women’s Courtyard (2018), has won several accolades for her work. Her 2019 translation of Krishna Sobti’s A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There was awarded the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Translation Prize. Rockwell is also the winner of English PEN’s translation awards in 2019.

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