Award-winning 'Tomb of Sand' to be published in US in 2023

The book, which is the story of an elderly widow thinking back on the 1947 partition of British India into India and Pakistan, was originally written in Hindi

This year's winner of the International Booker Prize, Geetanjali Shree's novel “Tomb of Sand,” will be released in the US this winter by an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

“Tomb of Sand,” the story of an elderly widow thinking back on the 1947 partition of British India into India and Pakistan, was originally written in Hindi and translated by Daisy Rockwell. It's the first book in any Indian language to win the International Booker Prize given for fiction translated into English.

“Tomb of Sand” was first published in 2018 and released in English translation in 2021. HarperVia has acquired it for the US market.

“I was blown away by the book's originality — a literary masterpiece unlike anything I have ever read before,” HarperVia editor Gretchen Schmid said in a statement Thursday.

“Geetanjali Shree writes about death, grief, and trauma in a way that is meaningful and moving, but also playful and funny, and I'm in awe of the richness and exuberant wordplay of Daisy Rockwell's translation.”