Geetanjali Shree's 'Tomb of Sand' breaks language barrier

Tribune News Service

Sarika Sharma

Chandigarh, May 27

Every language has in itself the capacity to cross borders, says Geetanjali Shree, and with ‘Tomb of Sand’, she has crossed so many in one go. It becomes the first Hindi novel to win the International Booker Prize. In fact, the first book originally written in any Indian language to win the award.

Behind this book lies a rich literary tradition in Hindi, and in other South Asian languages. Geetanjali Shree, writer

‘Tomb of Sand’ breaks the mould of storytelling, language and form — one of the major factors that pushed it into the Booker race. Originally published in Hindi as ‘Ret Samadhi’ in 2019, Shree shares the award with her American translator Daisy Rockwell.

Praising the novel, chair of the judges, Frank Wynne, said: “This is a luminous novel of India and its Partition, but one whose spellbinding brio and fierce compassion weaves youth and age, male and female, family and nation into a kaleidoscopic whole.”

Set in northern India, the novel is the epic story of the adventures of an 80-year-old woman who unexpectedly gains a new, and highly unconventional, lease of life and sets out to find life as she knew it when she was a young married woman in what is now Pakistan, in love with a Muslim man. Sometimes intense, sometimes playful, the book is engaging and funny even as it confronts unresolved trauma of Partition. Shree’s lyrical prose, her extraordinary narration hiding tales within tales, and Daisy’s effortless translation make it a delightful read, an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders.

Accepting the award at a ceremony in London on May 26, Shree said 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 laughing elegy 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.”

The world of Hindi literature is elated. Based in Delhi, Shree has to her credit three novels and several short stories.

Indian winners so far

VS Naipaul: In a Free State (1971)

Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children (1981)

Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things (1997)

Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss’ (2006)

Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger (2008)

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