Daisy Rockwell

Daisy Rockwell (born 1969) is a renowned American writer, an award-winning literary translator working with Hindi and Urdu literature, and a visual artist. Her groundbreaking translations of South Asian classics have drawn wider readership and recognition for writing from the subcontinent than few have ever managed to achieve. The most prominent of these successes include her translation of Krishna Sobti’s final novel, A Gujarat Here, A Gujarat There, which became the first South Asian book to win the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work in 2020.

Her most acclaimed work continues to be her English translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand (Tilted Axis Press, 2021), which became the first South Asian book to be shortlisted for and to win the International Booker Prize. Additional acclaim that Rockwell has received include the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, the Distinguished Translator Award by Vani Foundation, presented at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2023, and the English PEN x SALT Award 2025 for Our City That Year. Her work has also been supported by the NEA and the NEH, and she has been a translator in residence at various venues including Princeton University.

Besides her literary translations, Rockwell has published two novels Taste and Alice Sees Ghosts and an essay collection. Her forthcoming projects include a collection of poems about literary translation called Mixed Metaphors coming out in 2026, as well as a memoir Our Friend, Art with Pushkin Press in 2027.