Who Is Geetanjali Shree? First Indian Languages Author To Win International Booker Prize

Delhi-based Hindi-language novelist and short story writer, Geetanjali Shree became the first Indian winner of the International Booker Prize for her novel, Tomb Of Sand. The novel is a story of an eighty-year-old woman caught in the throes of depression after the death of her husband.

Crossword Bookstores’ shortlisted her 2000 novel, Mai for its Crossword Book Award in 2021. Geetanjali Shree is also a critic of Premchand, a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction and a writer of caste hierarchies including the plights of women.

Geetanjali Shree Wins International Booker Prize

Geetanjali’s first story Bel Patra 1987 came out in Hans literary magazine followed by her collection of short stories, Anugoonj (1991). The English translation of her novel Mai made her renowned with the story of three generations of women and men around them in a North Indian middle-class family.

It was also translated into Serbian and Korean languages. Sahitya Academy Translation Prize winner Nita Kumar translated the novel into English. Shree’s second novel, Hamara Shahar Us Baras is set against the backdrop of the communal riots and other incidents following the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition.  

Raised in various towns in Uttar Pradesh, as her father was a civil servant, Geetanjali Shree says that this kind of upbringing in UP and little access to English-language children’s books enriched her connection to Indian languages. Also, the recipient of the Indu Sharma Katha Samman award, a literary award instituted in the memory of poet and short story writer, Indu Sharma, she has been a fellow of the Ministry Of Culture, India and Japan Foundation. Shree is also inclined towards theatre and art.

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“I never dreamt of the Booker, I never thought I could. What a huge recognition, I’m amazed, delighted, honoured and humbled,” said Geetanjali Shree in her acceptance speech. 

According to The Hindu, at the ceremony in London on Thursday, Shree spoke about her happiness with the “unexpected event” as she accepted the prize worth GBP 50,000. English translator, Daisy Rockwell translated her book. 

“There is a melancholy satisfaction in the award I am going to get. Tomb Of Sand is an elegy for the world we inhabit, 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 added. 

"Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself. Even women on their own are enough. Women are stories in themselves, full of stirrings and whisperings that float on the wind, that bend with each blade of grass," Shree wrote in the opening pages of the novel.