Genre Fiction
![Geetanjali Shree - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B07FDNYC5P.jpg)
Tomb of Sand: A Novel
WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
A playful, feminist, and utterly original epic set in contemporary northern India, about a family and the inimitable octogenarian matriarch at its heart.
"A tale tells itself. It can be complete, but also incomplete, the way all tales are. This particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please. Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself . . ."
Eighty-year-old Ma slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband. Despite her family's cajoling, she refuses to leave her bed. Her responsible eldest son, Bade, and dutiful, Reebok-sporting daughter-in-law, Bahu, attend to Ma's every need, while her favorite grandson, the cheerful and gregarious Sid, tries to lift her spirits with his guitar. But it is only after Sid's younger brother-Serious Son, a young man pathologically incapable of laughing-brings his grandmother a sparkling golden cane covered with butterflies that things begin to change.
With a new lease on life thanks to the cane's seemingly magical powers, Ma gets out of bed and embarks on a series of adventures that baffle even her unconventional feminist daughter, Beti. She ditches her cumbersome saris, develops a close friendship with a hijra, and sets off on a fateful journey that will turn the family's understanding of themselves upside down.
Rich with fantastical elements, folklore, and exuberant wordplay, Geetanjali Shree's magnificent novel explores timely and timeless topics, including Buddhism, global warming, feminism, Partition, gender binary, transcending borders, and the profound joys of life. Elegant, heartbreaking, and funny, it is a literary masterpiece that marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer.
Translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Author's name pronounced: Ghee-TAHN-juh-lee Shree
A playful, feminist, and utterly original epic set in contemporary northern India, about a family and the inimitable octogenarian matriarch at its heart.
"A tale tells itself. It can be complete, but also incomplete, the way all tales are. This particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please. Once you've got women and a border, a story can write itself . . ."
Eighty-year-old Ma slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband. Despite her family's cajoling, she refuses to leave her bed. Her responsible eldest son, Bade, and dutiful, Reebok-sporting daughter-in-law, Bahu, attend to Ma's every need, while her favorite grandson, the cheerful and gregarious Sid, tries to lift her spirits with his guitar. But it is only after Sid's younger brother-Serious Son, a young man pathologically incapable of laughing-brings his grandmother a sparkling golden cane covered with butterflies that things begin to change.
With a new lease on life thanks to the cane's seemingly magical powers, Ma gets out of bed and embarks on a series of adventures that baffle even her unconventional feminist daughter, Beti. She ditches her cumbersome saris, develops a close friendship with a hijra, and sets off on a fateful journey that will turn the family's understanding of themselves upside down.
Rich with fantastical elements, folklore, and exuberant wordplay, Geetanjali Shree's magnificent novel explores timely and timeless topics, including Buddhism, global warming, feminism, Partition, gender binary, transcending borders, and the profound joys of life. Elegant, heartbreaking, and funny, it is a literary masterpiece that marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer.
Translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
Author's name pronounced: Ghee-TAHN-juh-lee Shree
Editorial Reviews
"An extraordinarily exuberant and incredibly playful book. . . . It manages to take issues of great seriousness-bereavement, loss, death-and conjure up an extraordinary choir, almost a cacophony, of voices. . . . It is extraordinarily fun and it is extraordinarily funny." - Frank Wynne, chair of the International Booker committee
"Tomb of Sand is in part the story of an elderly woman who arises from her bed to make a journey across frontiers, into a damaged past, but it is also a patchwork of voices and unforgettable characters, chattering among themselves, elbowing one another off the page. Heart-wrenching but brimming with life . . . A lasting joy." - The Financial Times
"Shree combines linguistic energy with unflagging wit to uncover the secrets and lies of Indian family life . . . [with] a marvelous ear. . . . Shree has no doubt drawn on the many writer she invokes directly in Tomb of Sand, but the novel I was most reminded of is an English-language one: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children." - New York Review of Books
"Shree is an excellent observer of women's inner lives. . . . This book, this Booker, has come at last, and for me it has come as a breath of fresh air." - The Guardian
"The gorgeous writing is fluid and poetic, yet it is also plain and arresting with its direct second-person narration. Rockwell's translation retains wit and rich flavor. . . . Readers of international literature, award-list titles, and literary fiction will cherish Shree's written intricacies of interior worlds as well as her detailed settings that evoke a strong sense of place." - Booklist
"A triumph of literature." - The Financial Times
"Playful, magical and magnetic, this monumental novel speaks to themes of love, grief, family ties, feminism, borders, spirituality, climate change and more." - Ms. magazine
"Quickly pulls you in and doesn't let go . . . A fantastical tale of rediscovery and delight in life." - Apartment Therapy
"A novel of enormous intelligence." - The Daily Telegraph
"Stunningly powerful . . . with Tomb of Sand, Shree claims space among the Partition writers she so ...
"Tomb of Sand is in part the story of an elderly woman who arises from her bed to make a journey across frontiers, into a damaged past, but it is also a patchwork of voices and unforgettable characters, chattering among themselves, elbowing one another off the page. Heart-wrenching but brimming with life . . . A lasting joy." - The Financial Times
"Shree combines linguistic energy with unflagging wit to uncover the secrets and lies of Indian family life . . . [with] a marvelous ear. . . . Shree has no doubt drawn on the many writer she invokes directly in Tomb of Sand, but the novel I was most reminded of is an English-language one: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children." - New York Review of Books
"Shree is an excellent observer of women's inner lives. . . . This book, this Booker, has come at last, and for me it has come as a breath of fresh air." - The Guardian
"The gorgeous writing is fluid and poetic, yet it is also plain and arresting with its direct second-person narration. Rockwell's translation retains wit and rich flavor. . . . Readers of international literature, award-list titles, and literary fiction will cherish Shree's written intricacies of interior worlds as well as her detailed settings that evoke a strong sense of place." - Booklist
"A triumph of literature." - The Financial Times
"Playful, magical and magnetic, this monumental novel speaks to themes of love, grief, family ties, feminism, borders, spirituality, climate change and more." - Ms. magazine
"Quickly pulls you in and doesn't let go . . . A fantastical tale of rediscovery and delight in life." - Apartment Therapy
"A novel of enormous intelligence." - The Daily Telegraph
"Stunningly powerful . . . with Tomb of Sand, Shree claims space among the Partition writers she so ...
Readers Top Reviews
Harshita Nanda
Tomb of Sand delightfully pokes fun at us, our society. It raises questions about feminism, transgender rights, the restricted views of religion, being boxed in assigned roles, and patriotism. Like Ma, who laughs and converses with crows and blackbirds, it shows the absurdness of it all and invites you to chuckle about them. It raises questions and lets them be. The book is not looking for solutions or answers. It is just making the reader aware of what is more important, countries or humanity. Tomb of Sand is a massive meandering river that moves slowly, and yet, it sweeps away the reader with the rhythm of its words. Reading this book has, once again, made me realise how rich our Indian literary scene is. It is a sad fact, that the book needed to be translated into English to achieve the popularity it deserves. But the upside, of course, is that now even non-Hindi-speaking readers can enjoy the world that Geetanjali Shree has created from her words. As for me, I am planning to try and read the original “Ret Samadhi” and see how the two versions compare.
꧁༒Ǥ₳₦ǤֆƬᏋЯ༒꧂꧁༒Ǥ₳₦ǤֆƬ
Fabulous and inspiring story by geetanjali shree...
Annejanet elizabeth
But the jerky jumpy writing style was so off putting I quit after 25 pages. I really thought the story concept was great.
CivilEyesRebecca C.S
The writing is original, imaginative, and fun to read, especially for the first few chapters. But then it just goes on and on and on and on and on. Sorry. Tried hard to like it but I can’t get any investment going. Normally I like the nothing much happening books but this is that in the extreme for me.
