Writer’s Side Author Daisy Rockwell is longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature
Tomb of Sand, Writer's Side author Daisy Rockwell's International Booker-winning English translation of Geetanjali Shree's Ret Samadhi has been longlisted for The JCB Prize for Literature.
The jury says, "Wild and unruly, Tomb of Sand challenges our notions of what a novel should be. The impression of several novels within one give it a carnivalesque atmosphere. This novel is witty and irreverent yet filled with tenderness and psychological insight."
Tomb of Sand is the only English-language translation of a Hindi novel on JCB's longlist. According to the Print, Literary director Mita Kapoor said the longlisted books are "bracing, vigorous, transformative, experimental," both in voice and story. The winner of the Rs 25-lakh JCB Prize for Literature will be announced on November 19. In case the winning work is a translation, the translator will receive an additional Rs 10 lakh.
Writer’s Side Author Mihir Vatsa Wins the 2022 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar
Writer’s Side author Mihir Vatsa’s non-fiction debut, Tales of Hazaribagh: An Intimate Exploration of Chhotanagpur Plateau has been awarded the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2022 in English.
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Author of The Adivasi Will Not Dance) describes Vatsa’s book as “a book that will be remembered” and his writing as having “three components that are vital for writing about a place and its people: love, earnestness and humility.”
“[R]ead this book and enjoy a new form of non-chauvinistic, deeply immersive writing. Find a place in India that is neither too beautiful nor too popular, but is always interesting,” says Neha Sinha in The Hindu.
The three-member jury for the award selected Vatsa’s travelogue by majority, out of a shortlist of seven literary works from different genres ranging from novels to poetry and illustration.
The Yuva Puraskar is arguably the most important award for young writers in India. Past winners include the likes of Raghu Karnad, Manu Pillai, Tanuj Solanki, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar and Janice Pariat.
Writer’s Side Author Daisy Rockwell Wins the International Booker Prize 2022
Tomb of Sand – Writer’s Side author Daisy Rockwell’s English translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Ret Samadhi – has won the International Booker Prize 2022. It marked a historic win as this is the first Hindi novel and the first from India and South Asia to ever win the award.
Frank Wynne, the chair of the 2022 International Booker Prize jury, describes Tomb of Sand as “… 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 critics weren’t frugal in praising Daisy’s translation either. “Much credit must go to Rockwell for keeping pace with a writer who said at last month’s Jaipur Literature Festival at the British Library: there are stories inside me, all around me, everywhere,” writes Sonia Faleiro in her review of the novel.
Writer’s Side represents Daisy’s other award-winning books, including her translation of Krishna Sobti’s final novel, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There (Penguin, 2019), the first South Asian book to be awarded the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work in 2020.