'Heart Lamp' wins International Booker, with stories of India's Muslim women and girls

Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi have made history by winning the International Booker Prize for 'Heart Lamp,' the first short story collection to achieve this honor. The book features 12 stories reflecting the lives of women in southern India's Muslim communities, addressing themes such as caste, oppression, and reproductive rights. Mushtaq’s storytelling draws from real experiences faced by women she encounters daily, while Bhasthi's translation aims to preserve the essence of the original Kannada language. The prize, awarded for the best fiction translated into English, emphasizes the rich cultural exchange involved in translation.

Heart Lamp is something genuinely new for English readers; it speaks of women's lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.”

I witness [this] day to day, in my daily life, because so many women come to me. They have brought all the problems with them.”

...the aim is to introduce the reader to new words, in this case, Kannada, or to new thoughts that come loaded with the hum of another language. I call it translating with an accent.”

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