Banu Mushtaq’s ‘Heart Lamp’ bags International Booker prize 2025
Team L&M
A short story collection Heart Lamp, by Banu Mushtaq translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, has been awarded the International Booker Prize 2025. This is the first time that a Kannada translation and an Indian origin translator has won the prestigious award. The book also received the English PEN Translation Award in 2024.
This achievement marks a historic moment, with Heart Lamp (published by Penguin Random House) becoming one of the very few Kannada-language works to be recognised at this level. It is also a significant milestone for Indian literature in translation and for Penguin, following the 2022 win for Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree and the 2023 longlisting of Pyre by Perumal Murugan.
Banu Mushtaq is a writer, activist and lawyer from Karnataka, southern India. Mushtaq began writing within the progressive protest literary circles in southwestern India in the 1970s and 80s. Critical of the caste system, the Bandaya Sahitya movement gave rise to influential Dalit and Muslim writers, of whom Mushtaq was one of the few women. She is the author of six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection and a poetry collection. She writes in the Kannada language and has won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards.
Deepa Bhasthi is a writer and literary translator based in Kodagu, southern India. Her translation of Banu Mushtaq’s stories has won her the English PEN Translates award.
Originally written in Kannada, Heart Lamp explores the complexities of womanhood, love, loss, and the weight of tradition in contemporary South India. The stories are deeply rooted yet universally resonant, making this collection a moving and unforgettable literary experience.
