[INTERVIEW] International Booker Prize-winning 'Tomb of Sand' breaks down borders, celebrates plurality of life

Geetanjali Shree, Indian author and the winner of this year's International Booker Prize for her novel, "Tomb of Sand," speaks at the Expo Centre Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, Nov. 3, as part of the ongoing 41st edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair. Courtesy of Sharjah Book Authority

Indian novelist Geetanjali Shree discusses her genre-defying masterpiece at SIBF

By Park Han-sol

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates ― "No, no, I won't get up. Noooooo, I won't rise nowwww. Nooo rising nyooww. Nyooo riiise nyoooo. Now rise new. Now, I'll rise anew."

Uttered by author Geetanjali Shree in her mother tongue, Hindi, on the morning of Nov. 3, the delightful wordplay echoed through the convention hall at the Expo Centre Sharjah, filled with nearly 400 secondary school students from across the United Arab Emirates.

The passage comes from her fifth novel, "Tomb of Sand" ("Ret Samadhi" in its 2018 Hindi original), which earned her the honor of becoming the first-ever Indian novelist to win the International Booker Prize early this year after competing with five other shortlisted titles, including Korean author Chung Bora's "Cursed Bunny."

In less than 30 words, this handful of sentences already hints at what is at the heart of the 65-year-old writer's seminal work: the inventive and playful use of the language as well as the transformative journey of self-reclamation taken by a frail, bedridden woman in northern India who seems to have entirely given up on life.

"The trigger [for the story first] came to me in the form of an image of an elderly woman turning her back on everyone," she told The Korea Times in an interview at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF).

It's not an uncommon sight, especially in an extended household: an elderly family member sitting idly in a corner, apparently with no interest left in anything surrounding their existence.

In fact, for the first 150 pages or so, readers are only faced with the back of the 80-year-old matriarch, who's simply referred to as "Ma." Having fallen into a depression following her husband's death, she is either seen lying down or pressed against the wall, answering every one of her family's pleas to come out with a whimpering "no."

"But at some point, that image began to say some other things to me. Is it that she's sick and tired of life [itself]? Or is she instead sick and tired of the immediate life, responsibilities and people right behind her?" the author asked.

"And when she pushes herself as if into the wall, is it that she's trying to bury herself in it and just die? Or is it that she's boring a hole into it to come out of the other side and live a new life?"

Shree saw the latter in Ma.

Nearly 400 secondary school students from the UAE attend the talk led by novelist Geetanjali Shree at the Expo Centre Sharjah, Nov. 3. Courtesy of Sharjah Book Authority

Readers' patience is rewarded when the feeble woman finally rises from her retreat and embarks on a voyage of self-discovery. Her epic journey, accompanied by her nonconformist daughter, Beti, is marked by her willful breaking of borders and boundaries.

"Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself," the New Delhi-based author writes in the book.

The border comes in many forms as the pages unfold: age, gender and country. Already having challenged preconceptions about what is "age-appropriate" by becoming the unconventional octogenarian heroine of the tale, she further battles sarcasm and bewildered gazes by befriending Rosie Bua, a "hijra," or a trans woman. For her, a border is no longer a rigid, fixed wall but "a bridge between two connected parts."

And the book's continued interest in the fluidity of boundaries materializes when Ma illegally crosses the border between India and Pakistan to confront the specter and the trauma of the 1947 Partition of India lingering within her.

"Ma looks like an ordinary woman, but she is the child of partition. She is a child of Indian history," Shree said.

"Michelangelo once said, 'Every [block of] stone has a statue inside it, you just have to discover it.' So it's like that. Every ordinary woman has another story, an extraordinary story, and you just have to discover it. And I did."

"Tomb of Sand," written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell / Courtesy of Sharjah Book Authority

But one shouldn't be too quick to brand "Tomb of Sand" with a single label or theme. In fact, what makes Shree's experimental novel ― which took her eight to nine years to complete by the way ― a true delight to read is the sheer amount of digressions bursting with wit.

Not only does it touch on a myriad of subjects without explicitly making any as the singular grand theme ― feminism, global warming, Western hegemony, religion and ancient folklore, just to name but a few ― everyone, and I mean everyone, gets a voice.

Frank Wynne, chair of the judges for the 2022 International Booker Prize, called the book, "the joyous polyphony," adding that he has "read nothing like it, this year or any year."

Voices and thoughts from supporting and minor characters constantly "interrupt" the flow of the main narrative, competing to tell their arbitrary stories about the significance of Reeboks in a woman's life and the colors of "saris" (women's garments on the subcontinent). Even crows, a dog named Julius Caesar, butterflies, inanimate doors and walls chime in at different points, making the reading experience a wonderfully confounding one.

When asked about how she would then define "plurality," the author noted: "Plurality means different voices, different ways of being, seeing and expressing. Plurality means a place where all kinds of differences can be together. It can be about people, language and life. That is why there's a kind of unity of every living thing in this book."

The book thus becomes Shree's playground to invite diverse points of view ― even the ones she would personally oppose, like the patriarchal elder son's remarks about women ― to paint a richer vision of the world and life.

"It's about having sensitivity as a writer, trying to imagine and get into the skin of different people … It allows me to understand the vulnerability of others' perspectives. For example, Tolstoy had to have the sensitivity to imagine a woman in Anna Karenina's place. He is not a woman, but he has to imagine how in that society, a woman would feel. And that, I think, is what I would expect of a writer," she said.

Author Geentanjali Shree, right, and translator Daisy Rockwell pose together after winning the 2022 International Booker Prize for the novel, "Tomb of Sand," May 26. Courtesy of David Parry/PA

With "Tomb of Sand" getting due recognition beyond the Hindi literary circle and now around the world following its Booker win, Daisy Rockwell's masterful translation of the genre-defying masterpiece into English cannot go without mention.

The translated book, published by Tilted Axis Press, goes well over 730 pages, nearly twice the length of the original 384-page Hindi novel.

"Daisy did her own parallel play with language," Shree said. Rockwell strove to recreate clever wordplays, neologisms, rhythm and rhymes that are bursting with humor in the original language in her own way, in addition to retaining many fragments of Indian words and phrases alongside their English renderings.

"She's understood some of the things which are so close to me and she's done it with the same love. And she's made the book her own and carried it through," the Indian novelist added.

To her, building rapport with the translator based on mutual interest in preserving the "aatma," or soul, of the book is what matters the most ― not being consumed by obsession over word-for-word rendition.

"I also know that in every language, the book is going to acquire another breath … And I'm happy to celebrate that. It's like the book is getting a new life each time."

But as much as she has enjoyed the opportunity to reach the audience on the other side of the world through Euro-American translations, including English and French, Shree expressed hope during one of her talks at the book fair that her work would also one day be translated into other native Indian languages, or what she called "the languages of your own family and your neighbors."

"I mean, you don't communicate with your own intimate circle and you're [instead] communicating with the rest of the world. That would be a very unbalanced, skewed situation."