BOOKER PRIZE WIN BY INDIAN NOVELIST FOR TOMB OF SAND

Fri 27 May 2022:

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker Prize for her novel “Tomb of Sand,” the Booker Prizes said on Friday.

“Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, has won the 2022 International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction,” a statement published on the prize’s website said, adding that this is the first book originally written in any Indian language to win the International Booking 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 GBP 50,000 and shared with the book’s English translator, Daisy Rockwell.

The novel tells us about an 80-year-old woman who suddenly discovers “a new, and highly unconventional, lease of life.”

“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.

The Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, while the International Booker Prize is awarded for a book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. The winner of the prize receives 50,000 Pounds ($63,000), which he shares with the translator.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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