Bengaluru: In a historic first for Kannada literature, writer, lawyer, and activist Banu Mushtaq was awarded the prestigious International Booker Prize on Tuesday for her short story collection Heart Lamp. She shares the £50,000 (approx. ₹56 lakh) award with translator Deepa Bhasthi.

Mushtaq, 77, is the first author writing in Kannada to receive the global honour, which celebrates works of fiction translated into English. The prize was announced at a ceremony at the Tate Modern gallery in London.

“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,” Mushtaq said, as quoted by AFP.

Deepa Bhasthi, who also helped curate the collection, was recognised equally for her “radical” translation. Max Porter, chair of the judging panel, described Heart Lamp as “something genuinely new for English readers,” noting that the translation “ruffles language” and broadens the contours of contemporary English.

A Voice for Women and the Marginalised

Set in the Muslim communities of southern India, the twelve stories in Heart Lamp, written between 1990 and 2023, explore the complex lives of women and girls, often under the weight of religion, patriarchy, and politics.

“My stories are about women—how religion, society, and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates,” Mushtaq said in her acceptance speech.

About the Author

Born and raised in Hassan district of Karnataka, Mushtaq’s literary journey began early. Enrolled at a Kannada-medium missionary school in Shivamogga at age eight, she began writing just days after joining. Over her decades-long career, she has written in Kannada and also been published in Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, and Malayalam.

Mushtaq worked briefly as a reporter for Lankesh Patrike and at All India Radio in Bengaluru. A longtime social activist, she faced a three-month social boycott in her hometown for advocating Muslim women’s right to enter mosques. In the early 2000s, she was active in protests led by the Komu Souhardha Vedike against restrictions on Muslim access to the syncretic shrine at Baba Budangiri in Chikmagalur.

She has previously received the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award, the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award, and the 2024 PEN English Translate Award.