ADVERTISEMENTs
Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp wins 2025 International Booker Prize
The Kannada book is translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, who will share the prize money equally.
-
Pranavi Sharma - Wed, 21, May 2025
- 02:22 EDT
- 30
.JPG)
Banu Mushtaq with Translator Deepa Bhasthi. / Booker Prizes
Heart Lamp, a collection of short stories by Indian writer and lawyer Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada into English by Deepa Bhasthi, has won the 2025 International Booker Prize. The announcement was made May 20 evening at a ceremony held at the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in London.
Mushtaq is the second Indian author to win the prestigious prize, and Bhasthi the first Indian translator to receive the honour. The £50,000 prize will be shared equally between them.
Published by Sheffield-based independent publisher And Other Stories, ‘Heart Lamp’ is the first short story collection to win the award. Written over more than three decades, the 12 stories centre the lives of women in patriarchal communities in southern India. It is also the first book translated from Kannada—a language spoken by around 65 million people—to win the prize.
Mushtaq, a prominent women’s rights advocate based in Karnataka, said her writing was shaped by the experiences of the women who came to her seeking legal help. “The pain, suffering, and helpless lives of these women create a deep emotional response within me, compelling me to write,” she said.
ALSO READ: Kannada debut: Banu Mushtaq features in Booker Prize Longlist
The stories in Heart Lamp, originally selected from six Kannada collections written between 1990 and 2023, were chosen and curated by Bhasthi. She worked independently on the selection and immersed herself in Urdu music and Pakistani television to better understand the cultural context of the characters. “I was very conscious of the fact that I knew very little about the community she places her stories in,” Bhasthi said. “I suppose these things somehow helped me get under the skin of the stories and the language she uses.”
Describing her approach, Bhasthi said: “When one translates, the aim is to introduce the reader to new words, in this case, Kannada. I call it translating with an accent, which reminds the reader that they are reading a work set in another culture, without exoticizing it.”
Mushtaq, now in her seventies, began her writing career in the protest literature movement known as Bandaya Sahitya, which gave rise to many Dalit and Muslim voices in Kannada literature. She is the author of six short story collections, a novel, a poetry collection, and essays. While her work has previously been translated into Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, and Malayalam, Heart Lamp is the first book-length English translation.
Chair of judges Max Porter described the book as “something genuinely new for English readers,” praising its “radical translation which ruffles language” and its depiction of “women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.” The panel unanimously agreed on the winner early in their deliberations.
Mushtaq and Bhasthi were both first-time nominees.
Related
.jpg)
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
E Paper
ADVERTISEMENT
.jpg)
Video
Comments
Start the conversation
Become a member of New India Abroad to start commenting.
Sign Up Now
Already have an account? Login