New Delhi: The stories in Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp spotlight the lives of Muslim girls and women from southern India – often peripheral in our society – and “slice through the fault lines of caste, class and religion”, the International Booker Prize panel said while longlisting the book.
Comprising 12 short stories originally written in Kannada between 1990 and 2023 and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp was longlisted for the International Booker Prize on Tuesday (February 25).
It is among two short story collections and 11 novels longlisted for the prize, which is given annually to one book that has been translated into English.
Six of these 13 books will be shortlisted in April and the winner announced in May.
Heart Lamp, said the prize’s judges, “portrays the lives of those often on the periphery of society: girls and women in Muslim communities in southern India”.
Mushtaq’s stories “speak truth to power” and cut through caste, class and religious fault lines, “exposing the rot within: corruption, oppression, injustice, violence”, the judges said.
“Yet, at its heart,” they went on, the book “returns us to the true, great pleasures of reading: solid storytelling, unforgettable characters, vivid dialogue, tensions simmering under the surface and a surprise at each turn”.
Penguin India, Heart Lamp‘s publisher, quoted Mushtaq as saying that her book’s longlisting is a “tremendous honour for literature in the Kannada language”.
Translator Bhasthi said: “This recognition is not just personal but a significant moment for Kannada literature.
“That the everyday experiences of south Indian women building lives under patriarchal pressures have resonated with the distinguished jury, and hopefully, will soon reach a global readership, is both humbling and affirming. It is a testament to the universality of Banu Mushtaq’s stories and to the power of translation.”
Mushtaq has won the Karnataka Sahithya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards, and Bhasthi was a recipient of the PEN Translates award last year.
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said that Heart Lamp‘s longlisting was an honour for Kannada and Kannadiga culture and that “this recognition will pave the way for global appreciation of Kannada storytelling”.
