Acclaimed Kannada writer, activist, and lawyer Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection Hridaya Deepa (Heart Lamp ) bagged the prestigious International Booker Prize 2025. Banu Mushtaq became the first Kannada author to win the prestigious International Booker Prize.

Devadas TP- Industry Technology Media Special Correspondent

Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection Hridaya Deepa (Heart Lamp), translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, bagged the £50,000 award at a ceremony held at London’s Tate Modern.

Her writing always entrenched with  the themes of secularism, harmony, and brotherhood.

She has published six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection, and a poetry collection.

Her work has been translated into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and English.

Banu Mushtaq was born into a Muslim family in Hassan, Karnataka.

In contrast to community expectations, she attended university and married for love at the age of 26.

She was a reporter for the newspaper Lankesh Patrike  and, for some months, she worked for All India Radio in Bengaluru.

In 2000, a three-month “social boycott” was announced against Mushtaq and her family in response to her “advocacy of the right of Muslim women to enter mosques.

Since the 1980s, Mushtaq has been involved in activist movements working to undermine “fundamentalism and social injustices” in State  of Karnataka.

The stories in “Heart Lamp ” reflect Mushtaq’s life as a journalist and lawyer, with a focus on women’s rights and resistance to caste and religious injustice in her  her part of the state.

Chair of the Booker International judges Max Porter said that although the stories are feminist, and “contain extraordinary accounts of patriarchal systems and resistance”, first and foremost they are “beautiful accounts of everyday life and particularly the lives of women”.

The Co -Winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 for Heart Lamp. Mrs.Deepa Bhasthi is a writer and literary translator based in Kodagu, Karnataka.

Deepa Bhasthi was the first Indian translator to win the prize and this was the first short story collection ever to win the prize

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.