Language challenge led translator Daisy Rockwell to International Booker

Rockwell, co-winner of International Booker 2022 for her Hindi translation of Tomb of Sand, did her PhD on Upendranath Ashk

Ever since the Tomb of Sand has won the International Booker Prize 2022 for Geetanjali Shree, the author of the Hindi original, Ret Samadhi, and its English translator Daisy Rockwell, the buzz around Hindi translations has reached a crescendo.

Of particular interest is the fact that the Hindi translator is an American who had had no prior exposure to the language before she started studying it on a lark in college—"to challenge me with an unfamiliar language."

"I knew nothing about Hindi or Indian culture at all when I started learning Hindi," said Rockwell, who was born in 1969 in Massachusetts and is currently a painter, writer and translator based in Vermont, USA, to Deccan Herald.

"I found it very difficult from the start because it was so unfamiliar, and American Hindi classes are full of 'heritage learners' (South Asian Americans with some previous knowledge), so I was the only one who knew absolutely nothing.

"But I saw that as an exciting challenge, and I stuck it out to the end of the first year, after which I had the opportunity to visit India for the first time and study for three months at the Landour Language School in Mussoorie.

That course, too, was very difficult for me. Still, by the time I returned to the US, I was hooked and began taking courses on Indian history and culture and language. I eventually went on to do my PhD on Hindi literature at the same university (University of Chicago)."

Before hitting international headlines with Tomb of Sand, Rockwell had already translated many Hindi books into English to critical acclaim, including Upendranath Ashk's Girti Diwarein (Falling Walls), Bhisham Sahni's Tamas and Khadija Mastur's Aangan (The Women's Courtyard).

While Rockwell's cultural background may render her an outsider to the stories these stalwarts of Hindi-Urdu literature tell, she critiques the notion.

"To say the milieu I have translated is alien to me is inaccurate, considering that I have been spending time in India regularly for over thirty years and have a PhD in Hindi literature. For a long time, I have focused on Partition literature, and I might even dare to say that few people know more than I do about the architecture, geography and zeitgeist of 1947 Lahore."

Rockwell's PhD thesis was on Ashk (1910-1996), whom she met in Allahabad, where she spent a year when the author passed away.

"Neelabh (the late Hindi poet and Ashk's son) urged me to continue translating his father's writing. Ashk himself had permitted me to do so before his death," says Rockwell, whose PhD thesis was published by Katha as Upendranath Ashk: A Critical Biography.

Besides Ashk, Rockwell met Sobti, although she could not meet Sahni.

About Shree, she said, "Interestingly, because of the pandemic, Geetanjali Shree and I, though we emailed a great deal, had never met until a few weeks ago in London. In that sense, I didn't know her as well as I had known previous authors I had translated."

She is currently working on a translation of a novel by Usha Priyamvada (Indian-born American writer known for Pachpan Khambhe, Lal Diwarein) and another one by Sobti. As expected, she is flooded with requests for translations post-International Booker.

Rockwell hopes the prize will make the translation scene in India "more systematic."

"There is a huge outpouring of interest in translation and non-English works of literature in India due to the prize," she said. Outside of India, I hope editors will start showing more enthusiasm for South Asian translation projects. South Asia is full of talented non-English language writers and gifted translators that work between different languages."

Besides Hindi, Rockwell studied "a bit of Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam, but the only other language I have translated from is Urdu… I don't know why I stuck with Hindi—it's sort of like asking, 'Why do you stay married to your wife?' Well, I don't know, but it seemed the right thing to do.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, editor and arts consultant. She blogs at archanakhareghose.com)