Banu Mushtaq's Kannada short story collection, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, wins International Booker Prize 2025

Writer activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaqs short story collection Heart Lamp has become the first Kannada title to win the coveted GBP 50000 International Booker Prize in LondonMushtaq described her win as a victory for diversity as she collected the prize on Tuesday night at a ceremony at Tate Modern along with her translator Deepa Bhasthi who translated the title from Kannada to EnglishThe winning collection of 12 short stories chronicles the resilience resistance wit and sisterhood of everyday women in patriarchal communities in southern India vividly brought to life through a rich tradition of oral storytellingShortlisted among six worldwide titles Mushtaqs work appealed to the judges for its ldquowitty vivid colloquial moving and excoriatingrdquo style of capturing portraits of family and community tensionsldquoThis 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 wholerdquo said MushtaqldquoIn a world that often tries to divide us literature remains one of the lost sacred spaces where we can live inside each others minds if only for a few pagesrdquo she saidTranslator Bhashti added ldquoWhat a beautiful win this is for my beautiful languagerdquoMax Porter International Booker Prize 2025 Chair of judges described the winning title as something genuinely new for English readersldquoA radical translation which ruffles language to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes It challenges and expands our understanding of translationrdquo he saidldquoThis was the book the judges really loved right from our first reading Its been a joy to listen to the evolving appreciation of these stories from the different perspectives of the jury We are thrilled to share this timely and exciting winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 with readers around the worldrdquo he saidThe tales in Heart Lamp the first collection of short stories to win the prize were written by Mushtaq over a period of over 30 years from 1990 to 2023They were selected and curated by Bhasthi who was keen to preserve the multilingual nature of southern India When the characters use Urdu or Arabic words in conversation these are left in the original reproducing the unique rhythms of spoken languageFiammetta Rocco Administrator of the International Booker Prize added ldquoHeart Lamp stories written by a great advocate of womens rights over three decades and translated with sympathy and ingenuity should be read by men and women all over the world The book speaks to our times and to the ways in which many are silencedldquoIn a divided world a younger generation is increasingly connecting with global stories that have been skilfully reworked for Englishlanguage readers through the art of translationrdquoThe annual prize celebrates the best works of longform fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK andor Ireland between May 2024 and April 2025The other five books on the shortlist included On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle translated from Danish by Barbara J Haveland Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix translated from French by Helen Stevenson Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes and A LeopardSkin Hat by Anne Serre translated from French by Mark HutchinsonEach shortlisted title is awarded a prize of GBP 5000 shared between the author and translator and the winning prize money is split between Mushtaq and Bhashti who receive GBP 25000 eachIt marks the second win for an Indian title since 2022 when Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the coveted prize for the firstever Hindi novel Tomb of Sand Perumal Murugans Tamil novel Pyre translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan made it to the longlist in 2023This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params