Daisy Rockwell is an American writer and translator of Hindi and Urdu language literature. She shared the International Booker Prize (2022) with Indian author Geetanjali Sri for her translation into English of Sri’s Hindi-language novel ‘Ret Samadhi’ titled ‘Tomb of Sand’. He is also an artist and painter.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Anne Daisy Rockwell was born in 1969 (age 53 years; as of 2022) in Massachusetts. Coming from a family of artists, Rockwell felt urged to pursue her creative impulses.
Childhood photo of Daisy Rockwell with her father
As a classic subject, he studied Latin, French, Greek and German. Later he started learning Hindi in college. In the second year, he enrolled in social science class. He developed an interest in learning Hindi after attending a translation seminar with AK Ramanujan for three months at the beginning of his graduation. In college, her professor Suzanne Rudolph recounted how she and her husband would spend every fourth year in India, where they would write books together. After this, Daisy also followed the same path and came to India. He received his PhD in South Asian Literature with his thesis on the Indian novelist Upendranath Ashk.
Family
parents and siblings
Daisy Rockwell’s father Jarvis
His father’s name is Jarvis W. Rockwell and mother’s name is Nova Wyatt Rockwell. Both his parents are artists.
Daisy Rockwell’s parents
husband and children
Their daughter’s name is Seraphina Rose Rockwell York.
Daisy Rockwell’s daughter
Other
His grandfather, Norman Rockwell, was a popular painter whose works reflected American social history. From 1916 to 1930, Norman Rockwell was married to Irene O’Connor. After his divorce from O’Connor in 1930, he married Mary Barstow, a schoolteacher. In 1977, Norman Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He died peacefully at his home in Stockbridge on 8 November 1978, aged 84.
norman rockwell
A portrait of Daisy Rockwell by her grandfather Norman Rockwell
livelihood
as a translator
In 1995, after meeting Upendranath Ashk, Rockwell spent two decades translating his 1947 Hindi novel Girti Kishori (Girti Diwaare) into English as ‘Falling Walls’, which was published in 2015. The novel follows a lower-middle-class Punjabi man. A man from the 1930s who aspires to be a writer but fails at every turn.
In 2016, he translated Bhisham Sahni’s 1974 Hindi novel ‘Tamas’. The novel captures the horror of senseless communal violence when a tanner is bribed to kill a pig and the next morning the animal’s carcass is found on the steps of the local mosque.
In 2018, she translated Khadija Mastoor’s 1962 Urdu novel ‘Aangan’ into English, titled ‘The Woman’s Courtyard’. Set in the 1940s, the novel focuses on the claustrophobic lives of women whose entire existence was confined to the four walls of their homes, and for whom the outside world remained an inaccessible dream.
women’s courtyard
In 2019, he translated Krishna Sobti’s biographical Hindi novel Gujarat Pakistan to Gujarat Hindustan (Gujarat Pakistan to Gujarat Hindustan) into English titled A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There. In the novel, Sobti talks about his first job as the Maharaja of Sirohi, a district in the Indian state of Rajasthan, after the partition of India.
One Gujarat here, one Gujarat there
In 2021, he translated Gitanjali Shree’s Hindi novel ‘Ret Samadhi’ into English with the title ‘Tomb of Sand’. The novel humorously depicts the story of an 80-year-old Indian woman who is day by day becoming a defiant teenager and aspires to travel to Pakistan after the demise of her husband.
On 26 April 2022, Tomb of Sand became the first Indian book to win the International Booker Prize. , The writer-translator duo received a literary prize of £50,000, which they divided equally. Other literary works by him include Ashq’s ‘In the City a Mirror Wandering’ and ‘Hats and Doctors’ and Mastur’s ‘A Promised Land’.
as an artist
An illustrator, Rockwell created the cover illustrations for both the Hindi and English editions of Tomb of Sand. She regularly posts her paintings on Flickr. She paints 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 wrote ‘The Little Book of Terror’, a collection of paintings and essays on the global war on terrorism, published by Foxhead Books.
little book of terror
In April 2014, her novel ‘Taste’ was published by Foxhead Books. The novel follows Daniel, who embarks on a cross-country quest to find answers about his past after making a shocking discovery through long-sealed documents.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- Aldo and Jean Scaglione Award of the Modern Language Association for Translation of a Literary Work for A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There (2019)
- International Booker Prize (2022) for ‘Tomb of Sand’, translation of Gitanjali Shree’s Hindi language novel ‘Ret Samadhi’ into English.
Facts/General Knowledge
- The translation process for Tomb of Sand took place via email during the COVID 19 pandemic with Rockwell in Vermont and Sri in New Delhi.
- Apart from the congratulatory messages for the winners, Amul dedicated a timely advertisement to celebrate Daisy Rockwell and Gitanjali Sri winning the International Booker Prize (2022).
Amul’s contemporary advertisement is dedicated to Daisy Rockwell and Gitanjali Shri
- Daisy Rockwell is a carnivore.
An excerpt from Daisy Rockwell’s post on Instagram
- She occasionally consumes alcoholic beverages.
An excerpt from Daisy Rockwell’s Instagram post
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn