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Daisy Rockwell Biography: Age, Career, Family and More

F4U Editorial Desk • Updated September 29, 2026 • 6 min read

Quick Info

Date of birth1969

Age53 (as of 2022)

BirthplaceMassachusetts, US

ProfessionWriter, Hindi and Urdu Language Translator, Painter

NationalityAmerican

Marital statusMarried

FamilyDaughter - Serafina; Father - Jarvis (painter); Mother - painter; Grandfather - Norman Rockwell

Daisy Rockwell Biography

Daisy Rockwell is an American translator, writer and painter known for English translations of major Hindi and Urdu works. She won the International Booker

Early life and background

Daisy Rockwell was born in Massachusetts in 1969 and grew up in a family of painters. Her father Jarvis and her mother, also a painter, raised her in a creative household; her grandfather was the artist Norman Rockwell. Rockwell pursued a broad humanistic education, studying multiple classical languages such as Latin, French, Greek and German as part of a Classics major. In graduate school she developed a strong interest in South Asian languages and literature, attending a translation seminar by A.K. Ramanujan and later focusing her doctoral work on South Asian literature with a thesis on the novelist Upendranath Ashk.

Career

Rockwell builds a multi-faceted career as a translator, writer and painter. She translates from Hindi and Urdu into English and has brought several important 20th-century South Asian works to English-language readers. Her translations include Upendranath Ashk’s Girti Divare, published in English as Falling Walls; Bhisham Sahni’s 1974 novel Tamas; Khadija Mastur’s 1962 Urdu novel Aangan, translated as The Women’s Courtyard; and Krishna Sobti’s autobiographical Gujarat Pakistan Se Gujarat Hindustan, issued in English as A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There.

Her long engagement with Ashk began after meeting him in 1995 and culminated in the 2015 English edition of Falling Walls. Rockwell also authored a critical biography of Upendranath Ashk, published in 2004. As a creative writer she has published the novel Taste (2014), and in 2012 she released a book of paintings and essays, The Little Book of Terror.

One of Rockwell’s most prominent achievements is her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel Ret Samadhi into English as Tomb of Sand, completed in 2021. She created the cover images for both the Hindi and English editions. Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022; the prize money of 50,000 pounds was shared equally between Geetanjali Shree and Rockwell. Earlier, Rockwell received the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work for her translation A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There (2019).

Public profile

Alongside her work as a literary translator and writer, Rockwell is an accomplished painter who signs work under the pseudonym Lapata, an Urdu word meaning ‘missing’ or ‘absconded.’ She regularly posts her paintings on Flickr. Her public persona combines scholarly engagement with South Asian literature, creative writing and visual art. Rockwell lives in Massachusetts, is American by nationality, and has at least one daughter named Serafina. She is married, though her spouse’s name is not publicly listed in the available material.

Latest updates

In 2022 Rockwell’s translation of Tomb of Sand brought international recognition when it won the International Booker Prize. That same year she was identified as 53 years old. Her recent catalog of translations and original books, together with her artwork under the name Lapata, continue to shape her active profile as a translator and artist.
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Recent Work

Tomb of Sand

English translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel Ret Samadhi; Rockwell also created the cover images. Winner of the International Booker Prize (2022).

2021
A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There

English translation of Krishna Sobti’s autobiographical novel; recipient of the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work.

2019
Falling Walls

English translation of Upendranath Ashk’s 1947 novel Girti Divare; translated over two decades following their meeting in 1995 and published in 2015.

2015
Taste

Original novel by Daisy Rockwell published by Foxhead Books, centering on a cross-country quest driven by discoveries in sealed documents.

2014
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Career Highlights

  1. International Booker Prize (2022) for Tomb of Sand (translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Ret Samadhi)
  2. Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work for A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There
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Frequently Asked Questions

When was Daisy Rockwell born?

1969

What is Daisy Rockwell known for?

Writer, Hindi and Urdu Language Translator, Painter

What is Daisy Rockwell’s marital status?

Married