Some of the Dhwani: Translating Geetanjali Shree’s Ret-Samādhi/Tomb of Sand

Following its 2022 Booker International Prize, Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand has enjoyed considerable scholarly attention, but not always for the best reasons. While critics have discussed the novel through a variety of familiar lenses (feminism, postmodernism, Partition studies), surprisingly few have paid attention to its Hindi original (Ret-Samādhi). This paper undertakes to correct this imbalance by reading the novel's original version against its French and English translations. By analysing how, and to what extent, two translators have succeeded in rendering Shree's unique dhwani (or tone) in their respective target languages, the paper seeks to demonstrate how literary translation can entail gains as well as losses.