New Delhi: Banu Mushtaq made history when she won the 2025 International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp. It was the first time a Kannada work, and a short story collection, had been honoured since the award’s inception in 1969. Against cautious advice to keep her hopes low, she confidently prepared her acceptance speech days in advance, ready to claim the spotlight she had earned.
“This book is my love letter to the idea that no story is local, that a tale born under a banyan tree in my village can cast shadows as far as this stage tonight. This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small…and in a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the lost sacred spaces where we can live in each other’s minds if only for a few pages,” she said in her acceptance speech at the Tate Modern in London.
At a conversation hosted by the India International Centre in New Delhi, Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi reflected on the power of language, resistance, and storytelling rooted in lived experience. In packed hall, over 100 eager fans, young readers, and family members gathered, buzzing with excitement to catch a glimpse of the winners. As a video of the Booker award ceremony played, the room erupted in applause, joy lighting up every face in celebration of their triumph.
From Mushtaq’s defiance in the face of censorship to Bhasthi’s insistence on linguistic authenticity, their collaboration is both a literary and political act—reclaiming space for regional voices on the global stage.
“A short story has a small canvas. You must bring in the characters, their struggles, the climax—all in a few pages. Even if there’s pain, I never let it end in despair. I want to tell all the women—don’t give up. Life is bigger than today,” said Mushtaq.
Struggle and hope
Mushtaq’s voice is both fierce and tender. A former journalist, lawyer, poet, and translator, she writes about her community—often focusing on women who are silenced or sidelined. In her stories, they speak, resist, and often, survive.
The author’s love for the Kannada language came early—but not easily. Enrolled first in an Urdu school, she struggled for two years. “I couldn’t read or write a word,” she recalled. Later, a convent school took her in reluctantly, warning her father that Muslim girls rarely picked up Kannada.
“Within a week, I started learning. I read, wrote and everything in Kannada,” she said. “My father was so happy.” It was her first taste of resistance and transformation through language.
Her work draws from Bandaya Sahitya—the Kannada literary rebellion of the 1970s that centred Dalit, feminist, and marginalised voices. “It means rebellion, but not with hate,” she said. “Our slogan was, ‘Let the sword become a poem.’ That sword must unite. It should bring the unheard to the centre of the story.”
Mushtaq’s own life mirrored that rebellion. She found solidarity and purpose in Karnataka’s vibrant social movements, from Dalit rights and farmers’ protests to language and literary activism. Visiting Dalit hostels, engaging with young people, and learning about the social fabric, the Constitution, and the layers of patriarchy helped shape her political and creative consciousness.
“I fought for my right to write. I wasn’t allowed, and that became my struggle… From housewife to activist to journalist—that was my journey.”
Through workshops, grassroots movements, and interactions with Dalit youth, she became socially aware. In 1981, she began reporting for Lankesh Patrike, writing both investigative pieces and short stories—marking the beginning of her life as a writer.
Her stories began to unsettle many, especially those unaccustomed to seeing Muslim women at the centre. “Until then, Muslim men were shown either as noble people or as villains. I wanted to tell the truth.” The backlash came swiftly.
In the early 2000s, a fatwa was issued against Mushtaq, and she faced social boycott for writing candidly about the inner lives of Muslim women. These were stories that had rarely been told in Kannada literature. Her refusal to be silenced marked a turning point in her journey as a writer.
“I have to write. If I don’t, my heart will burn. So, I must,” Mushtaq said. “They told me I wouldn’t be buried in our kabristan. I told them after my death, it’s the district administration’s problem, not mine.”
One man even presented her with an affidavit demanding she stop writing, but she defiantly tore it up and refused to sign, declaring she would rather face death than give up her voice.
Also read: Odia literature was limited to palm leaves. Print became its tool of resistance & revival
Translation: act of love and return
For Bhasthi, translating Heart Lamp was not just a literary project—it was a way to reconnect with her roots. Raised in English-medium schools, she found herself drifting away from her native language, Kannada.
“I call myself a selfish translator,” she said. “When I translated my first Kannada book—by Kodagina Gowramma—I realised I was reconnecting with my own language.”
Translation goes beyond simply transferring words between languages; it is an intimate process that demands trust, cultural insight, and careful listening for Bhasthi. Translating involves navigating two different grammars and ways of thinking. Her aim was not to make Kannada stories more palatable to English readers but to preserve their original essence.
In preparing for Heart Lamp, she immersed herself in stories. “I watched way too many Pakistani dramas. Listened to Ali Sethi, Aruj Aftab. Took a class in Urdu script. I even had a maulvi come to my house years ago to teach me Arabic,” she laughed.
Bhasthi saw translation not as secondary work but as a creative act in its own right. She describes the finished book as a “third text”—something entirely new that emerges from the collaboration between writer and translator. For this reason, she prefers the term “writer-translator,” recognising that translation is, at its core, authorship.
She is also clear-eyed about the politics of English in India. “Many translations simplify words to suit Google searches—like spelling ‘roti’ the North Indian way, even though that’s not how we say it in the South,” she said. In many south Indian states, it’s spelled rotti.
By preserving regional pronunciations and expressions, her translation refuses both Western and North Indian linguistic dominance. “This is how we speak English. Why dilute it to make it easy for Western readers?”
(Edited by Ratan Priya)