Geetanjali Shree has become the first Indian author to win the prestigious International Booker Prize for her "utterly original" Hindi novel 'Tomb of Sand', a family saga set in northern India about an 80-year-old woman who travels to Pakistan to confront the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition and re-evaluates what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and a feminist.
At a ceremony in London on Thursday, the 64-year-old New Delhi-based writer said she was "completely overwhelmed" with the "bolt from the blue" as she accepted her 50,000-pound prize and shared it with the book's English translator Daisy Rockwell. The prize is split between the author and the translator equally.
‘Tomb of Sand', originally ‘Ret Samadhi', is set in northern India and follows an 80-year-old woman in a tale the Booker judges dubbed as a "joyous cacophony" and an "irresistible novel".
"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.