Indian writer, lawyer and social activist Banu Mustaq has won the International Booker Prize for her short story collection 'Heart Lamp'. Along with this, she became the first Kannada language writer to win the Booker Prize.
His work 'Heart Lamp' is also the first collection of short stories to win the prestigious Booker Prize. The judges praised her for presenting a 'wonderful portrait of the struggle and determination to survive through the characters of the story collection'.
"Heart Lamp" contains 12 stories written by Mushtaq from 1990 to 2023. In the anthology, the hardships faced by the Muslim women of South India are deeply exposed. The Kannada language stories included in the
collection have been translated into English by Deepa Vasthi. The Booker International Prize is worth 50,000 pounds, which is split equally between the author and the translator. Kannada is a language spoken in the Indian state of Karnataka. In her speech after winning the 
award, Mushtaq thanked the readers for welcoming the words into her heart.
'This book is born from the belief that no story is small and that every thread in the fabric of human experience carries an overall weight,' she said, 'In today's divisive world, literature is one of the last few sacred places, where we can live inside each other's hearts, even if only for a few pages.' Vasthi, who became the first Indian translator to win the
International Booker, expressed her belief that the win of 'Heart Lamp' will encourage translation into Kannada and other South Asian languages.
Earlier in 2022, Indian writer Gitanjali Sri's 'Tomb of Sand' won the International Booker Prize . The book was translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell.
