Banu Mushtaq – författare

Winner of the 2025 International Booker PrizeIn the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions have garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards.‘A significant presence in Kannada literature, Banu Mushtaq reveals the varied realities of contemporary women with rare talent and art. Deepa Bhasthi’s rich translation captures the original’s nuances of voice, context and experience, bringing this important work into English for new readers in India and internationally.’ PEN Presents Selection Panel

Winner of the 2025 International Booker PrizeWinner of a PEN Translates AwardA monumental first collection in English from Banu Mushtaq: lawyer, activist, champion of Muslim women, and winner of Indias highest literary honors.In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humor, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaqs years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed womens rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving, and excoriating, its in her charactersa "e;the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great costa "e;that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style.Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well Indias most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.