✒️ SIGNED COPY
Signed by Geetanjali Shree · Strictly limited · Excluded from sale pricing
WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE · WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN AWARD
The first novel translated from Hindi — and the first from any Indian language — to win the International Booker Prize.
In northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband, and then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention — including striking up a friendship with a transgender person — confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.
To her family's consternation, Ma insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree's playful tone and exuberant wordplay result in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original. At the same time it is an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
Praise
“A luminous novel of India and Partition, but one whose spellbinding brio and fierce compassion weaves youth and age, male and female, family and nation into a kaleidoscopic whole.” — The 2022 International Booker Prize judges
About the author & translator
Geetanjali Shree is the author of five novels and five story collections. Originally published in Hindi as रेत समाधि (Ret Samadhi), Tomb of Sand is the first book translated from Hindi to win the International Booker Prize. Her other novels include Mai, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, Tirohit and Khali Jagah.
Daisy Rockwell is a painter, writer and translator living in Vermont, who has translated a number of classic works of Hindi and Urdu literature.
Cover photograph by Akshay Mahajan · Cover design by Ahlawat Gunjan
