The winner of the International Booker Prize has been announced

Geetanjali Shree became the first Indian writer to receive the International Booker Prize. Her novel Tomb of Sand is a family saga about an 80-year-old woman after her husbandʼs death.

The BBC writes about this.

It was the first book in Hindi to be shortlisted for a £ 50,000 prize.

"I never dreamed of Booker, I never thought I could," Ms. Shree shared her impressions.

Frank Wynne, the chair of judges, said the panel were "captivated by the power, the poignancy and the playfulness" of her novel. He added that he had not read anything like it before.

The prize money will be split between Shree and the bookʼs translator, US-based Daisy Rockwell.

The International Booker Prize is awarded every year for a book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Shreeʼs 725-page novel competed against five other shortlisted titles, by Mieko Kawakami, Bora Chung, Jon Fosse, Claudia Pineiro, and former winner Olga Tokarczuk.