Geetanjali Shree author of Tomb of Sand, the winning book at The 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony taking place at One Marylebone, London. Picture date: Thursday May 26, 2022. PA
Geetanjali Shree author of Tomb of Sand, the winning book at The 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony taking place at One Marylebone, London. Picture date: Thursday May 26, 2022. PA
Geetanjali Shree author of Tomb of Sand, the winning book at The 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony taking place at One Marylebone, London. Picture date: Thursday May 26, 2022. PA
Geetanjali Shree author of Tomb of Sand, the winning book at The 2022 International Booker Prize Ceremony taking place at One Marylebone, London. Picture date: Thursday May 26, 2022. PA

Indian novel ‘Tomb of Sand’ wins International Booker Prize


Soraya Ebrahimi
  • English
  • Arabic

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize on Thursday for Tomb of Sand, a vibrant novel with a boundary-crossing, 80-year-old heroine.

Originally written in Hindi, it is the first book in any Indian language to win the high-profile award, which recognises fiction from around the world that has been translated into English.

The £50,000 ($63,000) prize money will be split between New Delhi resident Shree and Rockwell, who lives in Vermont.

Translator Frank Wynne, chairman of the judging panel, said committee “overwhelmingly” chose Tomb of Sand after “a very passionate debate".

The book tells the story of an elderly widow who dares to cast off convention and confront the ghosts of her experiences during the subcontinent’s tumultuous 1947 partition into India and Pakistan.

Wynne said that despite confronting traumatic events, “it is an extraordinarily exuberant and incredibly playful book".

“It manages to take issues of great seriousness — bereavement, loss, death — and conjure up an extraordinary choir, almost a cacophony, of voices.

“It is extraordinarily fun and it is extraordinarily funny.”

Shree’s book beat five other finalists including Polish Nobel literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk, Claudia Pineiro of Argentina, South Korean author Bora Chung, Norweigan author Jon Fosee and Japanese author Mieko Kawakami to be awarded the prize at a ceremony in London.

The International Booker Prize is awarded every year to a translated work of fiction published in the UK or Ireland. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction.

The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages, which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain, and to salute the often unacknowledged work of literary translators.

Wynne said the prize aimed to show that “literature in translation is not some form of cod liver oil that is supposed to be good for you".

Tomb of Sand is published in Britain by small publisher Tilted Axis Press.

It was founded by Deborah Smith, who won the 2016 International Booker for translating Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, to publish books from Asia.

The novel has not yet been published in the US but Wynne said he expected that to change with “a flurry of offers” after its Booker victory.

“I would be gobsmacked if it didn’t increase its sales by more than 1,000 per cent [in Britain] in the next week,” Wynne said. “Possibly more.”

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India won by 26 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method

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Born November 11, 1948
Education: BA, English Language and Literature, Cairo University
Family: Four brothers, seven sisters, two daughters, 42 and 39, two sons, 43 and 35, and 15 grandchildren
Hobbies: Reading and traveling

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  1. Ensure decoration and styling – and portal photography – quality is high to achieve maximum rates.
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  4. Factor in costs when working out if holiday letting is beneficial. The annual DCTM fee runs from Dh370 for a one-bedroom flat to Dh1,200. Tourism tax is Dh10-15 per bedroom, per night.
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ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

Updated: May 11, 2023, 6:53 AM`