Banu Mushtaq, Indian writer-lawyer-activist, has scripted history by winning the International Booker prize for the short story anthology, Heart Lamp.
It is the first book written in the Kannada language, spoken in India’s Karnataka state, to win the prestigious prize. The stories in Heart Lamp were translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, reports BBC and agencies.
Featuring 12 short stories written by Mushtaq over three decades from 1990 to 2023, Heart Lamp poignantly captures the hardships of Muslim women living in southern India.
Born and raised in a small town in Karnataka, Mushtaq’s stories mirror the obstacles faced by women in a conservative and deeply patriarchal society.
Mushtaq’s writings have won numerous prestigious local and national awards including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award. In 2024, the translated English compilation of Mushtaq’s five short story collections published between 1990 and 2012 – Haseena and Other Stories – won the PEN Translation Prize.