Heart Lamp, a collection of 12 short stories by Kannada writer, activist, and lawyer Banu Mushtaq, translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize on May 20, 2025, at a ceremony held at London’s Tate Modern.
This historic win marks the first time a short story collection and a work originally written in Kannada, a language spoken by approximately 65 million people primarily in Karnataka, southern India, has received this prestigious £50,000 award, which is split equally between the author and translator.
Overview of Heart Lamp
-
Content and Themes: The collection, written between 1990 and 2023, exquisitely captures the everyday lives, struggles, and resilience of Muslim women and girls in patriarchal communities in southern India, particularly in Karnataka’s Malnad region. The stories delve into themes of misogyny, religious oppression, gender inequality, caste, class, and societal expectations, portraying characters such as sparky children, audacious grandmothers, and mothers enduring emotional and social challenges. Mushtaq’s narratives highlight the quiet power of persistence and resistance, avoiding stereotypical portrayals of Muslim women as mere victims. Instead, her characters negotiate and push back against oppressive structures in nuanced, grounded ways.
-
Style and Tone: Described as witty, vivid, colloquial, moving, and excoriating, Mushtaq’s prose blends dry humor with compassion, rooted in the oral storytelling traditions of Karnataka. The stories are celebrated for their solid storytelling, unforgettable characters, vivid dialogue, and simmering tensions, offering emotional and moral weight.
-
Translation: Deepa Bhasthi’s translation is lauded as a “radical translation” that retains the linguistic texture of Kannada, incorporating Urdu and Arabic expressions to preserve the multilingual fabric of the region. Bhasthi describes her approach as “translating with an accent,” ensuring the English version carries a deliberate Kannada hum without exoticizing the culture. This translation won the 2024 PEN Presents Award and has been praised for creating new textures in a plurality of Englishes.
Significance of the Win
-
Historic Milestone: Heart Lamp is the first short story collection to win the International Booker Prize, a significant departure from the award’s typical focus on novels. It is also the first Kannada work to be honored, following the legacy of Kannada author U.R. Ananthamurthy, who was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013. Mushtaq is the second Indian author to win the International Booker Prize, after Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand in 2022, and Bhasthi is the first Indian translator to receive the award.
-
Cultural Impact: The win highlights the global potential of Kannada literature and underscores the importance of translation in bringing regional Indian voices to a wider audience. Mushtaq emphasized that the prize demonstrates “the true potential of the Kannada language, its literature, and the possibilities ahead if more works are translated into other languages, especially English.”
-
Recognition of Diversity: In her acceptance speech, Mushtaq described the win as “more than a personal achievement” but an affirmation of thriving through diversity and uplifting marginalized voices. She stated, “This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small; that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole.”
About Banu Mushtaq
-
Background: Born in 1948 in Hassan, Karnataka, Mushtaq grew up in a Muslim neighborhood, initially studying the Quran in Urdu before attending a convent school where she became fluent in Kannada. Her career spans journalism, law, and activism, with a focus on women’s rights and challenging caste and religious oppression. She began writing in the 1970s as part of the Bandaya Sahitya (Rebel Literature) movement, a progressive literary circle addressing social injustices.
-
Literary Career: Mushtaq has authored six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection, and a poetry collection, all in Kannada. Her work has earned prestigious awards, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award. Heart Lamp is her first book-length work translated into English, though her stories have been translated into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam. One story from the collection was published in The Paris Review.
-
Inspiration: Mushtaq’s stories are drawn from her experiences as a lawyer and activist, where she encountered women seeking relief from patriarchal oppression. She has said, “My heart itself is my field of study,” emphasizing her direct engagement with marginalized communities as the foundation of her writing.
Notable Stories and Reception
-
Key Stories: The titular story, Heart Lamp, features Mehrun, a mother contemplating suicide after her husband takes a second wife, only to find solace in her daughter’s embrace. Another story depicts a woman enduring pain from stilettos imposed by her husband, illustrating everyday misogyny. These narratives combine emotional depth with social critique.
-
Critical Praise: The judging panel, chaired by Max Porter, unanimously selected Heart Lamp for its “beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories” that address women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power, and oppression. Critics have lauded Mushtaq’s compassion, dark humor, and ability to universalize the experiences of Muslim women, with The Indian Express noting her refusal to reduce characters to metaphors and The Financial Times praising the stories’ deceptive simplicity.
-
Previous Recognition: The English translation of Mushtaq’s earlier collection, Haseena and Other Stories, also translated by Bhasthi, won the 2024 PEN Translation Prize, signaling her growing international recognition.
Publication and Availability
-
Publishers: Heart Lamp is published in the UK by And Other Stories and in India by Penguin Random House. It is available in English, with previous translations in Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam.
-
Cultural Context: The collection’s win has been celebrated as a milestone for Indian regional literature, with Karnataka’s Chief Minister Siddaramaiah noting that Mushtaq “has raised the flag of Kannada’s greatness at an international level.”
Broader Impact
Mushtaq’s win is seen as a call to translate more works from India’s regional languages, amplifying voices from marginalized communities. Her stories, rooted in local experiences yet universal in their exploration of human struggles, challenge conservative norms and celebrate resilience. As Bhasthi noted in her acceptance speech, the win could spark greater interest in Kannada and other South Asian languages, enriching global literary landscapes.
For further details or to purchase Heart Lamp, visit the Booker Prizes website or retailers like guardianbookshop.com
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
South Asia Times (SAT) is on YouTube. Follow SAT YouTube Channel — @satimesSAT — for news, entertainment, sports videos from across Australia, South Asia, and the world.
