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The Hindu
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Signed copies of book in London in Kannada, says Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq
International Booker award recipient Banu Mushtaq was felicitated by the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists in Bengaluru on May 28. Banu Mushtaq, a writer, lawyer and activist, began writing about her people, their joys, sorrows and anxieties, over five decades ago. On May 20, Heart Lamp, a collection of 12 short stories selected from her work written between 1990 and 2023 and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize for 2025. During the felicitation, among other things, she shared her experience of travelling to London. 'In London, whoever approached me to sign their copy of 'Heart Lamp', I signed them in Kannada. The other shortlisted writers were masters degree holders. I was the only one to be a grassroots writer.' Apart from being a renowned writer, she is an advocate by profession. However, she started her career as a journalist for the Lankesh Patrike, and had a four decade-long stint in journalism. 'Heart Lamp' was a major success in the field of literature earning a huge profit of ₹6 crore for Penguin publishers. Heart lamp will be translated to 35 languages. According to Banu Mushtaq, 'People, irrespective of caste, race and community, were celebrating my success. Following the success of the book, many filmmakers had approached me for film rights.' Girish Kasaravalli, a renowned director, made a film based on Kari Nagaragalu, one of the short stories in the book. The film was called Hasina, and won a national award for best actor. Banu Mushtaq will be felicitated by the government of Karnataka at Vidhana Soudha on June 2.
Hindustan Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
‘Like a thousand fireflies lighting the sky'
Banu Mushtaq wrote her first short story when she was in middle school in Karnataka's Hassan town in the 1950s. That journey came full circle on Wednesday as the 77-year-old writer, lawyer and activist scripted history by winning the international booker prize along with her translator Deepa Bhasthi, becoming the first Kannada writer to clinch the prestigious award. The winning book, Heart Lamp – a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of 30 years that exquisitely captured the everyday lives of Muslim women in Karnataka with wit and poise – beat five other titles from around the world. It is the first short story collection to win the annual prize that honours the best fiction translated into English. 'This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky -- brief, brilliant and utterly collective,' Mushtaq said at a ceremony at the Tate Modern gallery in London. 'This book is my love letter to the idea that no story is local or small…to write in Kannada is to inherit a legacy of cosmic wonder and earthly wisdom.' Bhashti added, 'What a win this is for my beautiful language.' She became the first Indian translator to win the International Booker. This is the second Indian book to win the international booker prize in three years after Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the 2022 award for Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi). The writer and the translator receive 25,000 pounds each. 'Heart Lamp is something genuinely new for English readers. A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects. It speaks of women's lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression,' said jury chair Max Porter. A celebrated name in Karnataka, Mushtaq started writing in the 1970s and blazed a trail with her outspoken advocacy of women's rights and freedoms, attracting a volley of threats, social boycotts, and even surviving a knife attack. Her internal turmoil, often reflected in her protagonists, once brought her on the brink of taking her life in her late 20s as a young mother, but she survived that too. 'My stories are about women – how religion, society, and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates,' she told the Booker Prize in an interview. Her early grounding in the progressive movements in Karnataka served as the foundation for her decades-long body of work. She worked with Lankesh Patrike, a noted Kannada newspaper, for close to a decade, and one of her stories was adapted by director Girish Kasaravalli into a National Award winning film, Hasina, in 2004. 'The daily incidents reported in the media and the personal experiences I have endured have been my inspiration. The pain, suffering, and helpless lives of these women create a deep emotional response within me, compelling me to write,' Mushtaq added. Born in 1948 in Karnataka's Hassan town, Mushtaq grew up in a large Muslim family and initially went to an Urdu medium school before joining a Kannada language institution at the age of eight, quickly learning the regional language within a month. Her father, a government health inspector in the erstwhile Mysore state, encouraged her writing and bought her books in Kannada, despite their precarious financial situation. Her writing began when she was in school, but it was after she was married at 26, when her first short story appeared in the popular Kannada magazine Prajamata. In early interviews, she spoke about the indelible influence of her father and his constant support in her rebellion against the authoritarian atmosphere of her school. As she grew older and then started teaching, she fought back a pincer attack of patriarchy and community norms that muzzled her independence. She defied social expectations by marrying a man of her choice in 1974 but quickly felt overwhelmed by the orthodox gaze of her in-laws. 'One day, we had a terrible fight and I decided to commit suicide. I went to our room and poured petrol all over my body. I was just about to light a match and set myself on fire when my husband grabbed my hand and stopped me. He asked me why I was doing this to myself. I explained my mental anguish to him,' she said in a 2010 interview. As she broke free of shackles, her family also battled perennial financial woes for some time, forcing her to sew clothes for money and her husband to work in a watch repair shop. She wrote sporadically over the next decade, coming into her own only by the 1980s. During this time, she travelled across the state and found her footing in the Bandaya Sahitya movement, a progressive protest literary circle that challenged caste and class oppression. 'The 1970s was a decade of movements in Karnataka – the Dalit movement, farmers' movement, language movement, rebellion movement, women's struggles, environmental activism, and theatre, activities among others, had a profound impact on me,' Mushtaq said. 'My direct engagement with the lives of marginalised communities, women, and the neglected, along with their expressions, gave me the strength to write. Overall, the social conditions of Karnataka shaped me,' she added. In the early 2000s, her advocacy of women's entry into mosques brought her into the crosshairs of social conservatives who ordered a social boycott for three months, a diktat that sparked a string of threats and a knife attack on her. Mushtaq has written six volumes of short stories, apart from a novel, a book of poems and another of essays. She won the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award, among others. Bhasthi is a distinguished writer, literary translator, and cultural critic, whose translation of K Shivarama Karanth's novel, The Same Village The Same Tree, was published in 2022, followed by Fate's Game and Other Stories, a collection of short stories by K Gouramma in 2023. 'With Banu's stories, I first read all the fiction she had published before I narrowed it down to the ones that are in Heart Lamp. I was lucky to have a free hand in choosing what stories I wanted to work with, and Banu did not interfere with the organised chaotic way I went about it,' she said. 'I was very conscious of the fact that I knew very little about the community she places her stories in, so I only experienced art that was either set in or was about the milieu that she writes about. Thus, during the period I was working on the first draft, I found myself immersed in the very addictive world of Pakistani television dramas, music by people like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Sethi, Arooj Aftab and others, and I even took classes to learn the Urdu script,' she added. Women and girls who challenged norms of society and patriarchy in quiet, rebellious ways formed a central theme in her work, often blended with humour and poignance. In Heart Lamp – a collection that was whittled down from a list of 50 stories written between 1990 and 2023, and also won the English PEN Translation Award – a grandmother craves soft drink to get over bereavement, a cleric is obsessed with Gobi Manchurian, and a wife's jealousy forces her husband to look for a groom for his widowed mother. 'The more intensely the incident affects me, the more deeply and emotionally I write,' Mushtaq said. 'I do not engage in extensive research; my heart itself is my field of study.'
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Muslim author, Hindu translator: Duo ignites Kannada literary pride
The International Booker Prize win for Heart Lamp has triggered an outpouring of joy across Karnataka, with Kannadigas hailing it as a watershed moment for regional literature. The recognition comes at a time when Kannada literature , despite its rich legacy, has not seen a Jnanpith Award since Chandrashekhara Kambara win in 2010. Kannda once held the record for most Jnanpiths, but it has been overtaken by Hindi. The Booker win, therefore, is being celebrated as a long-awaited moment of global recognition. Mushtaq's literary journey is rooted in rebellion. In the early 1980s, she penned a powerful article rebuking a fatwa issued against a Muslim woman. The only publication bold enough to carry it was Lankesh Patrike, the tabloid run by literary icon P Lankesh. "This award has undoubtedly put the spotlight on Kannada," said Basavaraju Megalakeri, Mushtaq's colleague at Lankesh Patrike. "But one cannot overlook the symbolism; a Muslim woman author and a Hindu woman translator together bringing Kannada to the global stage. Whether intended or not, it is powerful." Renowned literary critic Prof Asha Devi MS, who wrote the foreword to Heart Lamp, said the award will resonate with women writers. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Tunisia: New Small Electric Car For Seniors. Prices Might Surprise You. Electric Cars | Search Ads Undo "Women writers have been congratulating one another ever since the news broke. It feels like a victory for every woman," Devi said. "The male-centric myth often claims women lack unity. That notion has been shattered by this collective celebration." Heart Lamp draws from decades of Mushtaq's writing, transcending religious and gender identities. "Sara Aboobacker gave us context for the struggle of Muslim women. Mushtaq took it beyond that. Her work speaks to universal human experiences, not just experiences of women or Muslim women," Devi added. In one of Mushtaq's most evocative stories, Omme Hennagu Prabhuve, the protagonist with God to become a woman for a day to understand the dangers women face. "This is not plea of just Muslim women, or women from one region or country," Devi said. "It's a plea rooted in shared human experience. The greatest impact of Banu Mushtaq is her ability to bring women characters out of boundaries set for them. She gives them dignity and a stamp of human experience." Though often associated with the Bandaya (rebel) school of literature, Devi argues that Mushtaq's style is more reflective than angry. "The essence of Bandaya is outrage (aakrosha), but when you're overwhelmed by outrage, truth can't be seen from all angles. Mushtaq's writing carries a tranquillity that enables a deeper, more nuanced engagement with truth."
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
From fatwa to fame: Banu Mushtaq's stand on Muslim women's rights earns global honour
Bengaluru: A trailblazing writer and activist from Hassan district in Karnataka, is a multifaceted personality who has left her imprint across journalism, law, politics and women's rights activism. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now But it is her powerful storytelling rooted in resistance, gender justice and social reform that has now earned global recognition. Mushtaq is a prominent voice of the (rebel literature) movement, which challenged patriarchal and feudal structures through its sharp and socially conscious writing in the 1980s and 1990s. As the state convener of the Bandaya Sahitya Sanghatane, she authored six influential short story collections that expanded the boundaries of . A fearless advocate for women's rights within the Muslim community, Mushtaq was among the earliest voices to demand the right for women to offer namaz in mosques — decades before the hijab debate made national headlines. Her campaign in the 1990s invited a fatwa and social boycott, but she stood firm. "I was only making a point that even in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, women are allowed to pray alongside men," she said in an interview. "But my argument earned the wrath of the community. It led to mental distress. I recovered only because of the support of family and solace I drew from my writing." Before entering law and politics, Mushtaq began her career in journalism with Lankesh Patrike, where her first report exposed a fatwa against a Muslim girl in Bijapur for watching a movie. She took up the cause, sparking what became known as the Najma Bagi controversy. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now She denounces the triple talaq system as un-Islamic and continues to push for internal reform within the community. "Change must come from within," she insists, "free from external political influence." Her acclaimed short story Kari Nagaragalu (Black Cobras), featured in her award-winning collection Heart Lamp, was adapted into a national award-winning film 'Hasina' by director Girish Kasaravalli. "I have read many stories by Banu Mushtaq. They are all rich with literary value and powerful in expressing the anguish of oppressed women in the Muslim community," said Kasaravalli. "I'm surprised she hasn't won recognition in the Kannada literary field so far. The International Booker Prize may serve as an eye opener for those who ignored her."
New Indian Express
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Heart Lamp: The quiet power of two women in saris embracing each other after their Booker win
In the pre-dawn hours, while most of India lay asleep, a quiet yet profound history was being made on the global stage. At London's Tate Modern Museum, Heart Lamp, a collection of twelve short stories written in Kannada by Banu Mushtaq and translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize—marking not just the first time Kannada has received this honour, but also the first time a short story collection has been awarded the prize. In that singular moment—when the prize was announced and two women, from two different generations, embraced on stage—something more than literature was being recognised. It was a lifetime of silences broken, struggles voiced, and a language long confined to the margins now carried to the centre of the world. As she accepted the award, Banu Mushtaq spoke with quiet gravity: "This book was born from the belief that no story is ever small—that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole... Literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds. Tonight is not an end point; it is a torch passed." A torch, indeed, passed from the often-erased histories of Muslim women in southern India to the hands of readers across the globe. Heart Lamp, written between 1990 and 2023, speaks in colloquial, raw, and vividly intimate prose of the interior lives of women—those pushed to the edges by religion, patriarchy, and poverty, yet defiantly alive with thought, wit, and desire. From Hassan to the world stage Born in 1954 in a small town in Karnataka's Hassan district, Banu Mushtaq began her education studying the Quran, before her father—a government worker—enrolled her at a Kannada-medium missionary school in Shivamogga. She was eight. Within six months, she was fluent in Kannada, a language she would not only adopt, but fiercely defend as a writer, lawyer, and activist. She married her love at 26. A year later, her first story was published. But behind her literary journey lay profound personal trials, including depression, isolation, and the often-invisible labour of motherhood. "I had always wanted to write but had nothing to write (about) because suddenly, after a love marriage, I was told to wear a burqa and dedicate myself to domestic work," she once recalled. Years later, enraged by the moral policing of a female teacher by a Muslim youth group, Mushtaq wrote a fiery article that was published in Lankesh Patrike. The same tabloid that was edited by slain journalist Gowri Lankesh's father, renowned for his firebrand journalism, she said, was "thrilling"—it marked her re-entry into the world of public expression, and the beginning of a literary rebellion. Deepa Bhasthi: The silent architect of this victory While Banu carved her path through decades of activism and prose, Deepa Bhasthi, from the hills of Kodagu, was quietly finding her own voice. A journalist by training, she wrote for publications like The New Indian Express, The Times of India, Scroll, The Caravan and Himal Southasian, before retreating from the noise of the mainstream to translate, write, and live in Madikeri. "The story of the world," she said during her Booker speech, "is a history of erasures... of how women and those on the many margins of this world live and love. This prize is a small win in a long, ongoing battle against such violence." Bhasthi's translation of Heart Lamp is not just linguistic—it is an act of preservation, revival, and resistance. By choosing to translate into English from Kannada, Bhasthi went against the grain of a trend where Indian literature is often mediated only through Hindi or urban centres. She chose instead to illuminate a voice rarely heard abroad—and did so with fidelity and fierce intention. Two women, two generations, one language As the two stood side-by-side in simple saris, smiling, not posturing, the symbolism was striking. Banu, whose stories had given Kannada Muslim women their first modern literary mirror, and Deepa, who carried those stories to the world — not with fanfare, but with quiet radicalism. It was a moment of unexpected, almost impossible beauty. It was also a pointed answer to a culture that too often says "Kannad gothilla" ("I don't know Kannada") with performative detachment. Here were two women who had not only lived Kannada—they had lit it like a lamp in the dark. Bhasthi's translation preserved not just the meaning of Mushtaq's stories, but their soul—the everyday textures of southern Muslim women's lives, their invisible labour, their impossible joys, their tenacious dignity. Together, their labour has not only brought Kannada to the world stage but has challenged the silence imposed on countless lives. Wednesday's moment on that global stage in London, with two women in simple saris embracing each other, was extraordinary in its quiet power. There were no orchestrated chants, no symbolic flag-waving. Just honesty, humility, and a love for a language that has often been sidelined even in its own home. In a country where Muslims are routinely vilified, where a sitting leader questions women's ability to be free, and where Kannada speakers still resist the daily pressures of Hindi imposition, this win is a kind of poetry. A kind of justice. Both women have stood apart from literary networks and metropolitan cliques. Mushtaq, by choosing to remain in Hassan, working as a lawyer while writing steadily, and Bhasthi, by moving away from the limelight of mainstream English journalism to dedicate herself to literature and translation from her small town in the hills. This is the truth beneath the surface, once the noise of rhetoric is stripped away. A Muslim woman who chose to write in Kannada. A translator who chose literature over trends. A language that speaks honey and fire. A prize that, finally, listened. And Kannada—our river of honey, our rain of milk—shines now, a Heart Lamp lit for the world to see. (The author is a writer and translator. She lives in Mysore)
