Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq is a poignant anthology of short stories that has gone ahead to win the 2025 International Booker Prize. This is a watershed moment for regional Indian literature and the art of translation.
Translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, Heart Lamp becomes not only the first Kannada-language book to win the prestigious award but also the first short story collection ever to take the prize.
The announcement was made Tuesday evening at a glittering ceremony in the Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern, with Max Porter, bestselling novelist and chair of this year’s judges, revealing the winner.
The £50,000 prize money will be equally split between Mushtaq and Bhasthi, in recognition of the vital role of translation in global literature.
Voice from Karnataka Resonates Globally
Set in southern India, Heart Lamp is a tapestry of 12 emotionally charged stories that illuminate the struggles, strength, and sisterhood of Muslim women living under the weight of patriarchy.
Described by the judges as “astonishing portraits of survival and resilience,” the stories span over three decades of Mushtaq’s writing—from 1990 to 2023, drawing richly from her upbringing in Karnataka’s conservative Muslim communities.
Mushtaq, who grew up in a small town in Karnataka, studied the Quran in Urdu before being enrolled by her father in a convent school where the medium was Kannada. Though Kannada was once foreign to her, she would come to adopt it as the language of her creative voice.
Mushtaq’s literary journey began in school and continued through college, a path she pursued while many of her peers settled into domestic life. Her first published story came during a turbulent phase in her marriage, a period she has candidly spoken about in several interviews.
Her stories are unapologetic, raw, and human, capturing not just gendered oppression, but also humor, tenacity, and hope.
Over the years, her writing has garnered several accolades, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award.
In 2024, her English-translated compilation Haseena and Other Stories, drawn from five collections published between 1990 and 2012, won the PEN Translation Prize, laying the groundwork for this Booker triumph.
The success of Heart Lamp also shines a spotlight on Deepa Bhasthi, whose careful, culturally nuanced translation has brought Kannada literature into the global spotlight. “This is a celebration of the power of language and the importance of representation,” she said in her acceptance remarks.
Fiammetta Rocco, the prize’s administrator, hailed the win as a “watershed moment” and noted that next year’s 10th anniversary of the prize in its current form is expected to bring even greater attention to translated fiction.
The International Booker Prize has been a catalyst for rising interest in global storytelling. According to Nielsen BookData, translated fiction in the UK generated a record £26 million in print sales in 2023, up 12% from the previous year.
