Heart Lamp wins 2025 International Booker Prize | 23 May 2025

Source: TH 

“Heart Lamp,” a short story collection by Banu Mushtaq, translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, became the first Kannada work to win the 2025 International Booker Prize, marking a historic moment for Indian regional literature. 

• Heart Lamp features stories portraying women’s struggles under patriarchy, echoing the Bandaya Sahitya movement and highlighting universal themes of gender discrimination. 
  • The 1970s Bandaya movement ignited literary and social activism around women's rights, and Dalit issues, influencing politics and literature across Karnataka and India. 
• International Booker Prize: Formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, it is a prestigious annual award for translated fiction, honoring the best long-form works or short story collections published in the UK or Ireland. It is awarded by the Booker Prize Foundation, UK. 
  • The prize awards Great Britain Pound (GBP) 50,000, equally shared between the author and the translator. Additionally, each shortlisted author and translator receives GBP 2,500. 
• Booker Prize: The Booker Prize is given each year to the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland. Writers from any country can win, as long as their book is originally written in English.
• Indian Booker Prize Laureates: