Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
In Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – 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 cost – 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 India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.
Imprint: India Penguin
Published: Apr/2025
ISBN: 9780143464471
Length : 224 Pages
MRP : ₹399.00
In a historic win for regional storytelling and translation, Heart Lamp, a collection of stories by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, has been awarded the 2025 International Booker Prize. Originally written in Kannada, Heart Lamp offers a searing, tender, and witty look at the lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in […]
