‘Heart Lamp’ on Booker longlist

Karnataka-based writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection, “Heart Lamp”, translated from Kannada to English by Deepa Bhasthi, was today longlisted for the International Booker Prize-2025 in London.

Chosen among 13 worldwide titles, Mushtaq’s work appealed to the judges for its “witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating” style of capturing portraits of family and community tensions. It marks the first time a Kannada title has made it to the longlist of the £50,000 literary prize.

“Exploring the lives of those often on the periphery of society, these vivid stories hold immense emotional and moral weight,” the judges said of Mushtaq and Bhasthi’s “Heart Lamp”. The annual prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English between May 2024 and April 2025.