NEWS : Indian writer Geetanjali Shree has become the first Indian author to win the prestigious International Booker Prize for Hindi novel ‘Tomb of Sand’

DETAILS

• It is first Booker prize for Hindi/Indian language
• It is a family saga set in northern India about an 80-year-old woman who travels to Pakistan to confront the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition and re-evaluates what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman and a feminist
• The book was translated into English by Daisy Rockwell

INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

• Formally known as The Man Booker International Prize
• Established in 1968 by Booker McConnell, a multinational company
• Provided a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France
• Initially, it was not meant for writers around the world. Only English-language writers from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Commonwealth countries were eligible
• It was in 2013 that it was announced that the prize would be open to English-language writers worldwide from 2014
• Aim of the prize is to encourage the reading and discussion of contemporary fiction.
• The first woman to win the Booker Prize was Bernice Rubens, for The Elected Member (1970)