The winners of the 2022 International Booker Prize were revealed overnight, with Hindi author Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell taking home the coveted prize for the novel Tomb of Sand.
This marks the very first time that a novel originally written in any Indian language has won the prize, with Tomb of Sand having been translated from Hindi. It tells a lively story of a grieving widow who travels to Pakistan to reckon with the unresolved trauma of her memories of Partition as a teenager, discovering a whole new perspective on life in the process.
Frank Wynne, 2022 Chair of Judges, said:
‘This has been an exceptionally strong shortlist, and it was gradually, regretfully, that we winnowed these six down to one after a long and impassioned debate. 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. 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.’
Geetanjali Shree said of her win:
‘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.’
Shree and Rockwell will share the £50,000 in prize money between them.
Congratulations to Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell!
Find out more about the International Booker Prize here
Tomb of Sand
An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life.
Her determination to fly in the face of convention including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more 'modern' of the two. At the older woman's insistence they travel back 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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Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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