Overview

• Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the 2025 International Booker Prize, with the £50,000 prize shared equally between them.
• This marks the first time a Kannada-language book and a short story collection have won the prestigious award.
• The collection features 12 stories spanning three decades, exploring the struggles and resilience of women in patriarchal communities in southern India.
• Deepa Bhasthi, the first Indian translator to win the award, preserved the multilingual essence of the original text, including Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic expressions.
• The win highlights the growing global recognition of regional Indian literature, following Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand in 2022.