Geetanjali Shree has been selected the winner of this year’s Booker International Prize for her novel, Tomb of Sand. Indian author Shree and English-language translator Daisy Rockwell will share equally in the £50,000 prize.

The International Booker Prize celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world. The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators.

In northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention - including striking up a friendship with a hijra person - confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.

To her family’s consternation, Ma insists on travelling to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.

Frank Wynne, chair of the judges, says: ‘This is 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.’ Read an interview with winner Geetanjali Shree here.

Please note: We currently have extremely limited stock of Tomb of Sand. Please call your local store to confirm availability before purchasing. We’re working hard to secure more copies, but anticipate a delay of some weeks.

Read more about the Booker International Prize here.