On 20 May 2025, Bengaluru (Karnataka)-based writer, lawyer, and activist Banu Mushtaq, along with translator Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize 2025 for the Kannada short story collection ‘Heart Lamp : Selected Stories’. The award was announced by author Max Porter during a ceremony held at the Tate Modern in London, the United Kingdom (UK).
- Banu Mushtaq became the first Kannada author and the first Muslim woman from India to win the International Booker Prize. She is the sixth female author to be awarded the prize since 2016.
- The book was translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, who became the first Indian translator and ninth female translator to win the International Booker Prize.
- This marks the first time a short story collection and a work originally written in Kannada have received this award.
Note: Heart Lamp marks the second Indian win at the International Booker Prize after the 2022 victory of Geetanjali Shree (Author) and Daisy Rockwell (Translator) for Tomb of Sand, the first Hindi novel to receive the prestigious award.
Cash Prize:
The award carries a cash prize of 50,000 British Pound Sterling(GBP)(USD 66,000) was shared equally between the author Banu Mushtaq and the translator Deepa Bhasthi.
- Additionally, each shortlisted author and translator received a cash prize of 5,000 British Pound Sterling.
About Heart Lamp:
i.The collection features 12 short stories written between 1990 and 2023, exploring the lives of women in southern India’s Muslim communities.
ii.It explores themes including resilience, caste oppression, reproductive rights, and sisterhood, rooted in Kannada oral storytelling traditions.
iii.The book was published by Sheffield (UK)-based independent publisher And Other Stories in April 2025.
About Banu Mushtaq:
i.Banu Mushtaq has been involved in movements advocating for women’s rights and social justice since the 1980s.
ii.She is the author of six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection, and a poetry collection in Kannada.
iii.She has won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards.
About Deepa Bhasthi:
i.Deepa Bhasthi is a writer and literary translator from South India has translated many works from Kannada to English.
ii.Her translation of Heart Lamp has received international acclaim, including the prestigious English PEN Translates Award (2024).
iii.Her notable translations from Kannada include a novel by Kota Shivarama Karanth and a collection of short stories by Kodagina Gouramma.
About International Booker Prize:
i.The International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, is a prestigious international literary award presented annually in UK by Booker Prize Foundation.
ii.The prize was established in 2005 as a biennial award for a body of work by a living author of any nationality, whose work was available in English or English translation.
iii.Since 2016, the format of the award has been revised to an annual prize given to a single work of fiction or a short story collection that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
iv.In 2024, the award was conferred on Kairos, authored by Jenny Erpenbeck from Germany, and translated into English by Michael Hofmann.
