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Journalism of Courage
It’s been a sudden thrust into the limelight following her International Booker Prize win alongside Daisy Rockwell for Tomb of Sand (2021), the English translation of her Hindi novel Ret Samadhi (2018). But writer Geetanjali Shree hopes that given the nature of literary acclaim that is distinct from the celebrityhood of film stars or cricketers, the dust will settle down soon and allow her to return to her life of quiet contemplation.
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“Booker mere se thoda alagh hi chalega,” she said in jest, in response to an audience’s question about whether the win will make her more conscious about her future works. Shree, 65, was in conversation with journalist and translator Poonam Saxena at a celebratory interaction organised by Teamwork Arts and ILF-Samanvay at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Earlier, during the conversation, Shree, who uses her mother’s surname, had spoken of how in the days since the win in late May, her life has been a whirlwind of social interactions. “My circle of friends and well-wishers has increased incredibly within these very few days. Old friends have resurfaced, new friends have emerged… It’s been a very rich experience and I am still processing it,” she said.
Set in north India, Shree’s novel has at its core the story of an octogenarian — Ma — who finds her way back into life, even as the narrative interrogates boundaries between nations, religions and genders. Speaking of her unusual choice of protagonist, the writer said that she felt compelled to interrogate the image of an old woman lying with her back to the world and what it was that nestled at the core of her being. In the course of her writing the book, it revealed itself as “jijivisha” — a lust for life — hardly ever associated with people of that age.
To Saxena’s query if her unconventional use of the Hindi language made her works difficult to read, Shree said, “I have been asked this question many times, and I always wonder what is the problem in it (being a difficult read)? Ashok ji (Vajpeyi, poet and critic) is here. I am going to use his dialogue. He says, literature is not a samosa, that you put it in your mouth and gulp it down. Why is it difficult if you have to halt somewhere, or circle back to a particular place or try again? Even if you don’t get it, it’s not a big deal. There are many things we see or feel that we cannot express in language but we understand its heft…”, adding that the joy of literature can sometimes lie in being motivated to “think anew”. The conversation was followed by book signing.
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