Written over 30 years, the 12 stories chronicle the lives of women in patriarchal communities in southern India. The book was written in Kannada, the official language of the state of Karnataka in southern India.
Describing the book’s win, Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 judges said Heart Lamp ‘is something genuinely new for English readers: a radical translation’ of ‘beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories’.
Lawyer and women’s rights activist Banu Mushtaq is the second Indian author to win the prize and said she was inspired to write the stories by those who came to her seeking help. ‘The pain, suffering, and helpless lives of these women create a deep emotional response within me, compelling me to write.’
Deepa Bhasthi becomes the first Indian translator to win the prize, and describes her process for Heart Lamp as ‘translating with an accent’.
The award was announced at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern, with organisers confirming The International Booker Prize wanted to recognise the vital work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money for the award divided equally between the author and the translator.
Heart Lamp is described as a collection of 12 short stories that 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 storytelling.
From tough, stoic mothers to opinionated grandmothers, from cruel husbands to resilient children, the female characters in the stories endure great inequities and hardships but remain defiant.
The stories were written by Mushtaq over a period of 30+ years, from 1990 to 2023. They were selected and curated by Bhasthi, who was keen to preserve the multi-lingual 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 language.
“Heart Lamp is a radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes,” says Max Porter.
“It challenges and expands our understanding of translation,” Porter shared in his comments on the win. “These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects. It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.
‘This was the book the judges really loved, right from our first reading. It’s been a joy to listen to the evolving appreciation of these stories from the different perspectives of the jury.
