A landmark moment for Indian literature!Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, a powerful collection of 12 short stories in Kannada translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, has won the International Booker Prize 2025

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A landmark moment for Indian literature!

Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, a powerful collection of 12 short stories in Kannada translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, has won the International Booker Prize 2025. This is the first Kannada work and only the second from India to win this global honour.

Written over a span of 33 years, the stories explore the personal and social struggles of southern Indian women—especially Muslim women—touching on caste, gender, and religious norms. Mushtaq, a lawyer and staunch women's rights advocate, infuses her lived experiences into each narrative.

Translator Deepa Bhasthi, from Kodagu, Karnataka, has been praised for her “radical translation” that preserves the spirit of the original while offering a fresh voice in English. She becomes the first Indian translator and the ninth woman translator to receive the award.

Mushtaq and Bhasthi will share the £50,000 prize, highlighting the global relevance of regional voices in literature.

— Venkataramanan Ramasethu
22 May 2025

#BookerPrize #IndianAuthors #KannadaLiterature #TranslationMatters #HeartLamp

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