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Kannada Writer Banu Mushtaq Wins Booker Prize for Short Story Collection
Updated on: 21 May, 2025 12:41 PM IST |Amruta Karulkar
Banu Mushtaq
In a groundbreaking moment for Indian and Kannada literature, writer, activist, and lawyer Banu Mushtaq has been awarded the prestigious International Booker Prize 2025. Her compelling short story collection, `Heart Lamp`, marks the first-ever Kannada work to receive this global honour. The announcement was made at a glittering ceremony at the Tate Modern in London, where Mushtaq, 77, shared the £50,000 prize with the book`s English translator, Deepa Bhasthi.
The collection, comprising twelve short stories penned over three decades from 1990 to 2023, vividly captures the resilience, resistance, wit, and sisterhood of everyday women, deeply rooted in Karnataka’s rich oral storytelling traditions.
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Reacting to the win, Mushtaq eloquently stated, “This feels like a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky – brief, brilliant and utterly collective.” She further emphasised the collective nature of her inspiration: "This is not just my victory, but a chorus of voices often left unheard."
The translation by Deepa Bhasthi was highly praised for its skill in preserving the musicality and multilingual fabric of Karnataka’s everyday speech. Bhasthi called the win “a beautiful win for my beautiful language”. She consciously retained Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic words, explaining, “None of us speaks ‘proper English’ in Karnataka. We exist within multiple languages and dialects. I was translating for Indian readers — I wanted them to hear the deliberate Kannada hum behind it.”
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Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 judging panel, described the book as "a radical translation which ruffles language to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes", hailing it as something "genuinely new for English readers." Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, called `Heart Lamp` “a testament to the enduring fight for women`s rights, translated with sympathy and ingenuity” and urged that it “should be read by men and women all over the world”.
Mushtaq sees the award as a triumph for diversity and the power of stories. “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,” she declared in her acceptance speech. “In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the lost sacred spaces where we can live inside each other`s minds, if only for a few pages.”
Published by Penguin Random House India, `Heart Lamp` is priced at ₹399.
A Landmark Achievement
`Heart Lamp` distinguished itself among six shortlisted titles from around the world, lauded for its “witty, vivid, colloquial, moving, and excoriating” portrayals of women navigating patriarchal communities in southern India. This victory is particularly notable as `Heart Lamp` is the first short story collection ever to win the International Booker Prize. It is also only the second Indian title to achieve this feat after Geetanjali Shree’s `Tomb of Sand` in 2022.The collection, comprising twelve short stories penned over three decades from 1990 to 2023, vividly captures the resilience, resistance, wit, and sisterhood of everyday women, deeply rooted in Karnataka’s rich oral storytelling traditions.
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Who is Banu Mushtaq?
Banu Mushtaq`s literary journey began early, with her first short story written in middle school. Her work has consistently explored the intersections of gender, caste, power, and religion, reflecting her deep engagement with Karnataka’s progressive movements like Bandaya Sahitya (rebel literature). "I was asked to write about my contexts, and so I did. But at the same time, I didn’t want to be confined within the identity of the ‘Muslim woman’," Mushtaq shared in a recent interview.Reacting to the win, Mushtaq eloquently stated, “This feels like a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky – brief, brilliant and utterly collective.” She further emphasised the collective nature of her inspiration: "This is not just my victory, but a chorus of voices often left unheard."
The translation by Deepa Bhasthi was highly praised for its skill in preserving the musicality and multilingual fabric of Karnataka’s everyday speech. Bhasthi called the win “a beautiful win for my beautiful language”. She consciously retained Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic words, explaining, “None of us speaks ‘proper English’ in Karnataka. We exist within multiple languages and dialects. I was translating for Indian readers — I wanted them to hear the deliberate Kannada hum behind it.”
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Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 judging panel, described the book as "a radical translation which ruffles language to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes", hailing it as something "genuinely new for English readers." Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, called `Heart Lamp` “a testament to the enduring fight for women`s rights, translated with sympathy and ingenuity” and urged that it “should be read by men and women all over the world”.
Mushtaq sees the award as a triumph for diversity and the power of stories. “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,” she declared in her acceptance speech. “In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the lost sacred spaces where we can live inside each other`s minds, if only for a few pages.”
Published by Penguin Random House India, `Heart Lamp` is priced at ₹399.
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