Heart Lamp written originally written in Kannada becomes India’s Second Indian Book Ever to be Longlisted for Booker Prize. Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq is translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi for Penguin Random House
Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, a searing collection of stories originally written in Kannada, has made history as India’s second book ever to be longlisted for the prestigious International Booker Prize.
Banu Mushtaq
Banu Mushtaq – the courageous literary voice of South India
Author of Heart Lamp Banu Mushtaq, a writer, activist and lawyer began to write in the 1970s and 80s. Hailing from Karnataka she would write within the progressive protest literary circles, and was part of the Bandaya Sahitya movement that gave rise to Dalit writers and Muslim literature. Mushtaq was one of the few women writers in the clan. She eventually went on to write six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection and a poetry collection.
Mushtaq’s unflinching prose, layered with humour and heartache, has earned both the ire of conservative voices and some of India’s most coveted literary accolades, marking her as one of the most vital and courageous literary voices of our time.
She writes in Kannada and has won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards.
Her collection of short stories Heart Lamp brings to life the daily realities of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India with rare wit, vividness, and emotional acuity.
Drawing from her decades as a journalist and lawyer advocating for women’s rights, her stories pulse with the texture of real lives—audacious grandmothers, spirited children, hapless husbands, and the mothers who endure at great personal cost.
Booker Prize website cites her work chosen as one of the 13 titles longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 –
Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.
Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.
Deepa Bhasthi
Accolades for English Translation
Heart Lamp was translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, writer and literary translator based in Kodagu. Her columns, essays and cultural criticism have been published in India and internationally. Her published translations from Kannada include a novel by Kota Shivarama Karanth and a collection of short stories by Kodagina Gouramma. Her translation of Banu Mushtaq’s stories has won her the English PEN Translates award.
On Mustaq’s Kannada book being longlisted for Booker she says – “This recognition is not just personal but a significant moment for Kannada literature. That the everyday experiences of South Indian women building lives under patriarchal pressures have resonated with the distinguished jury, and hopefully, will soon reach a global readership, is both humbling and affirming. It is a testament to the universality of Banu Mushtaq’s stories and to the power of translation.”
Indian Authors on International Booker Prize Longlist
This is the first time a Kannada book is longlisted for Booker Prize as it is called now. Another Kannada legend UR Ananthamurthy was longlisted back in 2013 when it was the Man Booker International. Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s ‘Pyre’, translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan made it to the longlist in 2023.
In 2022, however, Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the prize for their ‘Tomb of Sand’.
Heart Lamp – A Sneak Peek (Extract)
Arey, I forgot. I should tell you all about Mujahid, no? Mujahid is my home person. Oh. That sounds odd. A wife is usually the one who stays at home, so that makes her the home person. Perhaps then Mujahid is my office person. Che! I have made a mistake again. The office is not mine, after all. How else can I say this? If I use the term yajamana and call him owner, then I will have to be a servant, as if I am an animal or a dog. I am a little educated. I have earned a degree. I do not like establishing these owner and servant roles. So then shall I say ‘ganda’ for husband? That also is too heavy a word, as if a gandantara, a big disaster, awaits me. But why go into all this trouble? You could suggest that I use the nice word ‘pati’ for husband – then again, no woman who comes to your house introduces her husband saying ‘This is my pati’ – right? This word is not very popular colloquially. It is a very bookish word. If one uses the word pati, there comes an urge to add devaru to it, a common practice, equating one’s husband with God. I am not willing to give Mujahid such elevated status.
