Warwick Prize for Women in Translation announces joint winners for first time in award's history

Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand (Tilted Axis) translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell and Marit Kapla’s Osebol (Allen Lane) translated from Swedish by Peter Graves have been announced as the joint winners of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

This is the first time the judges have selected joint winners in the six-year history of the prize. The announcement was made at a ceremony held at The Shard in London.

Judge Boyd Tonkin said: "The judges agreed without dissent that these two extraordinary books from opposite ends of the literary spectrum both deserved to take the prize. Our choice of joint winners comes not out of conflict or compromise but a shared and equal wonder at the skill and vision of both pairs of authors and translators in such wholly different genres... Each of these books is, in its distinctive way, a uniquely powerful achievement; we salute the artistry of their authors and translators, and warmly recommend them both.”

In the novel Tomb of Sand Shree and translator Rockwell lead their readers on an uproarious, polyphonic journey through Indian domestic life and social history.

Boyd said: “The widowed, octogenarian Ma irrepressibly defies age, family and convention to take a trip that crashes through every barrier seeking to fix her role and cramp her style, as a playfully high-spirited satire embraces the darker legacies of division, prejudice and Partition.”

In the oral history Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village, Kapla and translator Graves assemble a haunting collage of testimonies from the inhabitants of a small rural community in remote woodlands.

Boyd said: “Selected, edited, and laid out with truly poetic grace and flair, these intimate stories of time and place, change and loss, accumulate into an unforgettable fresco of human experience and memory in an era of transition and upheaval.”

The award prize is £1,000 divided between authors and translators.

The joint winners were chosen from 138 eligible entries from 33 languages.