By: Majid Maqbool
Indian writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection Heart Lamp brings together 12 selected stories that explore the everyday lives and struggles of women and girls in the Muslim communities of southern India, particularly from her home state of Karnataka, and which recently made history by becoming the first short story collection to be awarded the International Booker Prize 2025. Originally written by Mushtaq in her native Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, the collection has been deftly translated into English by writer and translator Deepa Bhasthi, who has previously translated several works from Kannada into English. Bhasthi succeeds in retaining the emotional tone and distinct voice of Banu Mushtaq in the English translation. The two shared the £50,000 award, jointly presented at a ceremony held at London’s Tate Modern.
Mushtaq, 77, has been writing in Kannada and publishing stories since her early 20s, becoming a significant literary voice in Karnataka’s progressive protest literary circles in the 1970s and 1980s. Over decades, her writings have explored issues of caste, class, gender, and religious orthodoxy. She was also an active member of the Bandaya Sahitya (Rebel Literature) movement in Karnataka, which emerged in the 1970s as a protest against hierarchies of caste, class, and patriarchal oppression…
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