Sand tribute to Michelle Obama's Becoming

The publishing industry witnessed a milestone event this year with Michelle Obama's Becoming as it went on to become the highest selling memoir of all time with more than 10 Million copies sold.

The book has received great response from the Indian market as the nation connected with the story of one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. Penguin India has sold more than 70,000 copies of the book since its release.

The Penguin India team and Padmashri winning sand artist, Sudarsan Pattanaik, came together and celebrated this momentous occasion by creating a beautiful sand tribute to Michelle Obama to mark the global and unprecedented success of the book.

The sand sculpture was created at the Puri beach in Odisha. Through the striking sand sculpture, Mr Pattanaik congratulates Michelle Obama on the breakthrough success of the book. The sculpture has been created using four tonnes of sand.

Talking about this occasion and why it is special, Mr Pattanaik said "Michelle Obama's story is as nuanced and beautiful as the granules of sand. And much like the ocean, it is everlasting."

While Mr Pattanaik has worked on many sculptures of Barack Obama, this is the first time that he has worked on Michelle Obama's sculpture. Penguin decided to collaborate with Mr Pattanaik to celebrate the success of Becoming because his own story is also extremely fascinating.

Born to a humble family, Sudarsan went on to master the art of sand sculpture and has now represented India in more than 60 international sand sculpture championships.

Apart from these, he is creating social awareness in national and international arena on world peace, global warming, terrorism, HIV AIDS, to save endangered wildlife species through his sand art.