International Booker Prize Winner 2025 Banu Mushtaq x The Wire
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
New Delhi: The International Booker Prize winner for 2025, Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq, will be hosted by The Wire in New Delhi on July 19, Saturday for a discussion on the many worlds that our words encapsulate.
Titled Namma India, which means Our India in Kannada, The Wire 's senior editor, Arfa Khanum Sherwani will be in conversation with Mushtaq on her work, pursuits and life.
Mushtaq's award, won along with her translator Deepa Bhasthi, was only the second given to a South Asian language. The first was given to Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell, for the Hindi novel Ret Samadhi, translated to English as Tomb of Sand.
Mushtaq was introduced to the contemporary non-Kannada world through her stunning prose in Heart Lamp, a collection of stories written in Kannada and translated by Bhasthi. The book comprises a candid take on the inner lives of women, reflecting ordinary people living not-so-ordinary lives. She captures their struggles with empathy and understanding, and also provides the reader with a view of what is going on in the minds of those anxious to uphold the social order.
As she said while accepting the International Booker prize, "This is more than a personal achievement – it is an affirmation that we, as individuals and as a global community, can thrive when we embrace diversity, celebrate our differences, and uplift one another. Together, we create a world where every voice is heard, every story matters, and every person belongs."
Mushtaq's work is an important milestone in the journey of literary Kannada figures leaving a global imprint. Mushtaq has a varied career and life; she was an activist, lawyer and of course a writer. She began writing within the progressive protest literary circles in the 1970s and 1980s. The Bandaya Sahitya movement that she was associated with made a passionate case for social reform and progress. She has won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards.
The discussion at New Delhi's Jawahar Bhawan will start at 5.30 pm tomorrow. Entry is free.
The closest metro station is Central Secretariat.
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