GEETANJALI SHREE
Daisy Rockwell, is Shree’s fifth novel. It is the story of an 80-year-old Indian woman who loses her husband, turns her back on her life and family, and travels to Pakistan, to her prepartition past. It’s a complex story, wrought in a unique literary style. Some chapters are a single sentence. In others, a single sentence might stretch over three pages.
Shree also uses words in unusual ways, pairing words that roll into one another; or words that sound the same but mean completely different things. Rockwell’s translation captures all these and is a tour de force.
“Often language is treated as just the carrier of ideas, of the story. For me, language has its own presence and independent personality,” Shree told HT in March.
Growing up in small towns across Uttar Pradesh, Shree says she always spoke in Hindi with her mother.
“My Hindi was nurtured by her,” she adds. What would Shree say to the millions of Indians who don’t read except in English?
“It is a pity that so many of us don’t have access to the very rich lineage of our mother tongues. I would say to those who know their mother tongue and can access it: Perhaps this is an opportunity to rethink these things,” she says.
“Treat these languages with greater respect and curiosity. Give them the love and respect they deserve, without getting jingoistic or chauvinistic about it. There is in our reach and in our heritage a very rich lineage which it would be lovely if we could begin to access.”
The other five titles in the shortlist are: Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur from Korean; A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls from Norwegian; Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Samuel Bett and David Boyd from Japanese; Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle from Spanish; and The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft from Polish.
This year, the shortlisted authors and translators will each receive 2,500 pounds — increased from 1,000 pounds in previous years.