our City that year

by geetanjali shree / translated from hindi by daisy rockwell

Winner, English PEN x SALT Award 2025

A city teeters on the edge of chaos. A society lies fractured along fault lines of faith and ideology. A playground becomes a battleground. A looming silence grips the public.

Against this backdrop, Shruti, a writer paralyzed by the weight of events, tries to find her words, while Sharad and Hanif, academics whose voices are drowned out by extremism, find themselves caught between clichés and government slogans. And there’s Daddu, Sharad’s father, a beacon of hope in the growing darkness. As they each grapple with thoughts of speaking the unspeakable, an unnamed narrator takes on the urgent task of bearing witness.

First published in Hindi in 1998, Our City That Year is a novel that defies easy categorization—it’s a time capsule, a warning siren and a desperate plea. Geetanjali Shree’s shimmering prose, in Daisy Rockwell’s nuanced and consummate translation, takes us into a fever dream of fragmented thoughts and half-finished sentences, mirroring the disjointed reality of a city under siege. Readers will find themselves haunted long after the final page, grappling with questions that echo far beyond India’s borders.

Praise

‘The novelistic city caught in an epidemic of communal hate ‘that year’ could be any city today, senselessly gorging itself on simplistic stories of false pride and righteous revenge, oblivious to the centuries of composite culture it grew and prospered on. Placing the vocabulary of violent victimhood alongside the irreversible losses and silences unsettles the reader. Our City That Year is an essential read to understand our times.’—The Wire

‘Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell’s partnership continues to push the boundaries of literary translation, bringing poignant and powerful Indian narratives to global audiences. Our City That Year stands as a testament to their combined talents, shedding light on the complexities of communal violence, societal breakdown, and the deeply personal impact of such conflicts. As with their previous works, this novel not only challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths but also invites reflection on the delicate balance between past and present, tradition and change.’— Times Now

‘In Our City, That Year everyone turns to writing as a response. And in turn writing turns into its own kind of agony.’—Scroll India

Contributors’ details

Geetanjali Shree is the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize and of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, along with Daisy Rockwell, for her novel, Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi in the Hindi original). The French translation, published as Ret Samadhi: Au-dela de la frontier was shortlisted for the Emile Guimet Prize, 2021. Geetanjali Shree is the author of four other novels: Mai, Hamara Shahar Us Baras (Our City That Year), Tirohit (The Roof Beneath Their Feet), and Khali Jagah (Empty Space), and five collections of short stories. Her work has been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. Geetanjali also works on theatre scripts in collaboration with a Delhi-based group, Vivadi, of which she is a founding member.

Daisy Rockwell is an artist, writer, and Hindi-Urdu translator living in Vermont. She has translated numerous classic and contemporary literary works from Hindi and Urdu into English. Her translations have been awarded The International Booker Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Translation of a Literary Work, and the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation. Her translations have been honored with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and PEN Translates. Her novel Alice Sees Ghosts and Mixed Metaphors, her collection of poems about translation, are both forthcoming from Bloomsbury India in 2025. Her memoir Our Friend, Art is forthcoming from Pushkin Press in 2026.

more information

• Publication date: 22 April 2025 (UK)

• Extent: 448pp

• Format: B-format paperback (198mm × 129mm)

• Rights held: UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada and Indian Subcontinent)

• ISBNs: 978-1-917126-11-3 (paperback) / 978-1-917126-12-0 (ebook)

• Price: £16.99 (paperback)/ £8.99 (ebook)