#30 Tomb of Sand, by Geetanjali Shree
Booker Prize : WINNER International Booker 2022 Plot Time and Place : India and Pakistan, present day. Opening sentence : "A tale tells itself." Plot summary : In northern India, an 80-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease of life. Review : I appreciate what the author was trying to do (reinventing language, playing with words and sounds), but this was just too long. 739 pages of wordplay and soundplay, and the story is not so interesting. However, I persevered, and by the end it gets more like a "normal" story and the ending is quite beautiful. But altogether, it just didn't work for me. Rating : 2/5