Daisy Rockwell is an American writer and translator of Hindi and Urdu literature. She shares the International Booker Prize (2022) with Indian writer Geetanjali Shree for the translation of Shree’s Hindi novel Ret Samadhi into English Tomb of Sand. She is also an artist and illustrator.
Wiki/Biography
Anne Daisy Rockwell was born in Massachusetts in 1969 (age 53 in 2022). Rockwell came from a family of artists, which motivated her to pursue her creative impulses.
Daisy Rockwell childhood photos with her father
She majored in classics and studied Latin, French, Greek and German. Later, she started learning Hindi in college. The next year, she enrolled in a social science class. After graduating, she attended a three-month translation workshop with AK Ramanujan, after which she became interested in learning Hindi. In college, her professor, Susanne Rudolph, talked about her and her husband’s experiences living in India every four years, where they wrote books together. Afterwards, Daisy followed the same trajectory and came to India. She received her PhD in South Asian Literature with a thesis on the Indian novelist Upendranath Ashk.
family
Parents and siblings
Daisy Rockwell’s father Jarvis
Her father’s name is Jarvis W. Rockwell and her mother’s name is Nova Wyatt Rockwell. Both her parents are artists.
Daisy Rockwell’s Parents
husband and children
Her daughter’s name is Serafina Rose Rockwell York.
Daisy Rockwell’s daughter
others
Her grandfather, Norman Rockwell, was a popular painter whose works illustrated American social history. Norman Rockwell was married to Eileen O’Connor from 1916 to 1930. After divorcing O’Connor in 1930, he married schoolteacher Mary Barstow. In 1977, Norman Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. He died peacefully at his home in Stockbridge on 8 November 1978, aged 84.
norman rockwell
Portrait of Daisy Rockwell’s grandfather, Norman Rockwell
Profession
as a translator
After meeting Upendranath Ashk in 1995, Rockwell spent two decades translating his 1947 Hindi novel Girti Divare. In English, it’s called “The Falling Wall” and was published in 2015. In the 1930s, he determined to become a writer, but failed repeatedly.
In 2016, she translated Bhisham Sahni’s 1974 Hindi novel Tamas. The novel shows the horror of senseless communal violence after a tanner is bribed to kill a pig and the animal’s carcass is discovered the next morning on the steps of a local mosque.
In 2018, she translated Khadija Mastur’s 1962 Urdu novel Aangan into English as The Women’s Courtyard. Set in the 1940s, the novel tells the story of the claustrophobic lives of women whose entire existence is confined by the four walls of their homes, for whom the outside world remains an unreachable dream.
women’s garden
In 2019, she translated Krishna Sobti’s biographical Hindi novel गुजररत पकिस्तर् न》(Gujarat Pakistan Se Gujarat Hindustan) ) translated into English, The title is “Gujarat here, Gujarat there”. In the novel, Sobhuti recounts her first job as a tutor to the young Maharaja of the Sirohi district of Rajasthan, post-Partition India.
This is Gujarat, there is Gujarat
In 2021, she translated Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel “Ret Samadhi” into English titled “Tomb of Sand”. The novel humorously tells the story of an 80-year-old Indian woman who turns into a rebellious girl day by day and insists on going to Pakistan after the death of her husband.
On April 26, 2022, “Grave of Sand” became the first Indian book to win the International Booker Prize. . The writer-translator duo received a £50,000 literary prize, which they split equally. Other literary works she has translated include Ashker’s “The City in the Mirror” and “The Hat and the Doctor” and Mast’s “The Promised Land.”
as an artist
As an illustrator, Rockwell created the cover images for the Hindi and English editions of Grave of Sand. She regularly posts her paintings on Flickr. She writes under the pseudonym Lapata, which means “missing” or “absconding” in Urdu.
as a novelist
Rockwell wrote Upendranath Ashk: A Critical Biography (2004).
Upendranath Ashk: A Critical Biography
In 2012, she created The Little Book of Horror, a collection of drawings and essays about the global war on terror, published by Foxhead Books.
little book of horror
In April 2014, her novel “Taste” was published by Foxhead Books. The novel follows Daniel as he embarks on a cross-country quest to find answers to his past after making a startling discovery through long-sealed documents.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Literary Translation Award from the Modern Language Association for “Gujarat Here, Gujarat There” (2019)
- International Booker Prize (2022), for the translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel Ret Samadhi into English, titled Tomb of the Sands
Facts/Trivia
- During the Covid 19 pandemic, the translation process for Tomb of Sand was conducted via email with Rockwell in Vermont and Shree in New Delhi.
- In addition to the outpouring of congratulatory messages for the winners, Amul has also created a specially themed ad to celebrate Daisy Rockwell and Geetanjali Shree winning the International Booker Prize (2022 Year).
Amul’s special ad for Daisy Rockwell and Geetanjali Shree
- Daisy Rockwell is not a vegetarian.
Screenshot of Daisy Rockwell’s Instagram post
- She occasionally drinks alcoholic beverages.
Screenshot of Daisy Rockwell’s Instagram post
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education