Indian author Banu Mushtaq wins The Bookers Prize for ‘Heart Lamp’

New Delhi (India) May 21: Banu Mushtaq's 2025 International Booker Prize win has written history. It is the first time Kannada has been acknowledged, and her book Heart Lamp, which Deepa Bhasthi translated from Kannada, is the first collection of short tales to win the £50,000 prize.

Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi, who translated the title from Kannada to English, accepted the prize at an event held at Tate Modern.

Her work has a deep interest in social topics like as discrimination, caste, faith, women's experiences, reproductive rights, and the balance of power.

Mushtaq praised the experiences of the women she portrayed in her work with compassion in her award speech and said,"This is not just my victory, but a chorus of voices often left unheard.”

"This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky -- brief, brilliant and utterly collective.”

"I accept this great honour not as an individual but as a voice raised in chorus with so many others.”

Heart Lamp's "radical translation" and "vibrant, uplifting narratives," which combine Kannada roots with many socio-political dialects, have been praised by judging panel head Max Porter as "something genuinely new for English readers."

From 1990 to 2023, the anthology, which consists of 12 stories, describes the daily hardships faced by Muslim women in Karnataka.

In an interview with the Booker Prize Foundation, Mushtaq revealed that during her childhood in Karnataka, she found inspiration in the Dalit movement, farmers' movement, language movement, women's battles, and environmental activism during the 1970s.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah expressed appreciation and posted, “Heartiest congratulations to the proud Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq for winning the International Booker Prize for Literature. This is a time to celebrate Kannada, Kannadigas and Karnataka,” on social media platform ‘X’.

Mushtaq now joins an exclusive set of Indians, including V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga, and Geetanjali Shree, who have won the esteemed award since it started in 1969.

Aadrika Tayal