December 3: Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
December 3, Saturday
11am New York | 9.30pm Delhi | 4pm London
Watch the recording!
A deep dive into the prize-winning yet controversial novel, Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell. Amrita Ghosh is in conversation with the author and the translator followed by an open session where participants have the chance to ask questions.
Published by Titled Axis Press. Winner of the 2022 Booker International Prize and the English PEN Award. Click here to purchase the book .
This event has been organized in collaboration with the University of Central Florida's Department of English and The India Center.
About the book
In northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, 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 hijra 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 teenage 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 results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
About the author
Geetanjali Shree is the author of four novels as well as story collections, and her work has been translated into English, French, German, Serbian and Korean. Shree was born in Mainpuri, India, in 1957. Tomb of Sand is the first of her books to be published in the UK. She has received and been shortlisted for a number of awards and fellowships, and currently lives in New Delhi.
About the translator
Daisy Rockwell is a painter, writer and translator living in Vermont, US. She has translated a number of classic works of Hindi and Urdu literature, including Upendranath Ashk’s Falling Walls, Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas, and Khadija Mastur’s The Women’s Courtyard. Her 2019 translation of Krishna Sobti’s A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There was awarded the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Translation Prize.
About the host
Amrita Ghosh is an academic, writer and editor. She is Assistant Professor of South Asian Literatures at University of Central Florida in the department of English. Her book Kashmir’s Necropolis: New Literature and Visual Texts is forthcoming with Lexington Books.
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