Kannada writer Banu wins International Booker prize for 'Heartlamp'

Writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq's short story collection 'Heart Lamp' on Tuesday night became the first Kannada title to win the coveted GBP 50,000 International Booker Prize in London. Mushtaq described her win as a victory for diversity as she collected the prize at a ceremony at Tate Modern along with her translator Deepa Bhasthi, who translated the title from Kannada to English. Shortlisted among six worldwide titles, Mushtaq’s work appealed to the judges for its “witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating” style of capturing portraits of family and community tensions.
"This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small, that in the tapestry of human experience every thread holds the weight of the whole," said Mushtaq. "In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the lost sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages," she said.
A report from London said, 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.Mushtaq grew up in a small town in Karnataka in a Muslim neighbourhood, studied the Quran in the Urdu language at school. But her father, a government employee, wanted more for her and at the age of eight, enrolled her in a convent school where the medium of instruction was the state's official language - Kannada. Banu Mushtaq’s portraits of family and community tensions testify to her years tirelessly championing women’s rights and protesting all forms of caste and religious oppression.  

Mushtaq is the author of six short-story collections, a novel, an essay collection and a poetry collection. She writes in Kannada and has won major awards for her literary works, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards. Deepa Bhasthi is a writer and literary translator based in Kodagu. Bhasthi’s 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.  

(State Correspondent)