International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree has just a tiny regret! She wishes that her original title, Ret Samadhi, had been retained for the English version

Sheetal

Chandigarh had a date with International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree on a Sunday afternoon. The chill at the lake-side venue for Literati, the literature festival, evaporated as she took to the stage, sharing anecdotes and the thought process behind her fifth novel, Ret Samadhi. She talked her heart out as Prof Gurmeet Singh, the moderator for the session, steered the conversation.

French translator

Annie Montaut had felt that Ret Samadhi was the most un-translatable book of mine. But then, for the best translated novels someone took the challenge to do the unimaginable.

For the unversed, the translation of the same novel by Daisy Rockwell, titled Tomb of Sand, won the International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction in 2022. The first Hindi book to bag this prestigious award. Geetanjali’s session, titled Book To Booker, was the highlight of festival and Chandigarhites turned up in big numbers to get a glimpse of her. Her books just flew off the shelves as her fans queued up for a book signing session afterwards. And, Geetaljali readily obliged.

Fame is not new for this author. Much before Ret Samadhi, her debut novel Mai (2000) catapulted her to popularity, after its English translation hit the book shelves.

As for Ret Samadhi’s phenomenal success, the JNU alumna calls it a collective effort. For many contributed towards its win, including the translator and publisher. “I just happened to be in the centre of it all. It was not just my moment but it’s an eclectic moment for Hindi language as well as non-English languages of the sub-continent. As it gives hope for our literature to find more readers. It is now on the fellow authors and critics to how they wish to take this moment further and in which direction,” Geetanjali commented.

While the win was collective, the translation process was not an easy ride. As recollected Geetanjali, ‘It was a challenging project, which Daisy says caused her hair loss.” And as for Geetanjali, she would have loved to see the original title, Ret Samadhi, on the cover of the English version but Daisy and the publisher wasn’t convinced. She added, “There’s no English word for Samadhi. It isn’t a word but a concept which is impossible to consolidate in one English word. What is dead in a tomb is very much alive in a samadhi. Even though Daisy understood what I wanted to articulate but the publisher didn’t. So, we went with Tomb of Sand.”

Talking about her association with French translator Annie Montaut, who has translated Mai as well as Ret Samadhi, Geetanjali said, “She had felt that Ret Samadhi was the most un-translatable book of mine. But then, for the best translated novels someone took the challenge to do the unimaginable. Also, Annie retained the original title and the French book was called, Ret Samadhi — au-delà de la frontière.”

As for her rich vocabulary, Geetanjali said her childhood spent in villages of UP exposed her to the language. So, how did Partition become a theme? ‘It is not that you have to have a direct connection with some incident to write about it. Partition affected Punjab and Bengal the most, but it has had an impact on every Indian.”

A trip to Amritsar and watching the beating retreat ceremony at the Wagah border left an impact on her mind which later seeped into her writing. “We are under the same sky, breathing the same air and the GT Road is the same, but the differences created by one boundary has make us so negative about the neighbouring country. The ceremony made me feel ashamed.”

Geetanjali ended her session by reading an excerpt from her book. A commentary on a joint family. The poetic and humorous verses from the book left the audience in splits and in awe of her writing style.