Heart Lamp: Selected Stories

Synopsis

Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize, Heart Lamp brings together twelve stories spanning more than three decades of Banu Mushtaq's writing. Set within Muslim communities in southern India, these quietly powerful stories illuminate the everyday lives of women and girls navigating family, faith, poverty, marriage, and social expectation. With compassion, subtle humour, and remarkable emotional precision, Mushtaq reveals moments of resilience, defiance, and tenderness that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Originally written in Kannada between 1990 and 2023, these stories offer an intimate portrait of lives shaped by tradition while refusing simple stereotypes. Beautifully translated by Deepa Bhasthi, Heart Lamp is a landmark collection that introduces one of India's most important literary voices to English-language readers.

About the Author

Banu Mushtaq is an Indian writer, lawyer, and social activist from Karnataka whose fiction has earned widespread acclaim for its nuanced portrayal of women's lives and social justice issues. A leading voice in contemporary Kannada literature, her work has received some of India's highest literary honours. Heart Lamp, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the 2025 International Booker Prize, bringing Mushtaq's writing to an international audience.

Publisher

And Other Stories

Publication Date

April 8, 2025

Format

Paperback

Pages

224

Subjects

Short Stories · Fiction in Translation · Indian Literature · Kannada Literature · Literary Fiction · Feminist Fiction

ISBN

9781916751163