LONDON, May 21 – Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi have won the 2025 International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp, a short story collection translated from Kannada, marking the first time the prestigious award has gone to a collection of short stories and to an Indian translator.
The £50,000 ($63,000) prize, which celebrates the best translated fiction from around the world published in English, was announced Tuesday evening at the Tate Modern in London. The prize money will be split equally between Mushtaq and Bhasthi.
Originally written in Kannada, the official language of the Indian state of Karnataka, Heart Lamp features 12 stories selected and translated by Bhasthi from over 50 stories written by Mushtaq across three decades. The collection explores the lives of women in patriarchal communities in southern India.
Chair of judges Max Porter described the book as a “radical translation” and “something genuinely new for English readers.” He praised the stories as “beautiful, busy, life-affirming,” and noted that they are “not activist stories” but offer powerful insights into everyday life and systems of resistance.
“We were looking for the best book, and this is a really special one in terms of its politics and its literary quality,” Porter said, adding that the judges reached their decision unanimously after a lengthy six-hour discussion.
Bhasthi, the first Indian translator to win the award, said she aimed to preserve the cultural integrity of the original text. “I call it translating with an accent,” she told Scroll.in earlier this year. “The English in Heart Lamp has a deliberate Kannada hum to it.”
Accepting the award, Mushtaq said the recognition was more than a personal milestone. “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,” she said. “In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other’s minds.”
Other titles shortlisted for this year’s prize included On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre.
Last year’s award went to Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann. Previous winners include Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, Lucas Rijneveld, and Han Kang.
Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq is published by And Other Stories and is priced at £14.99.
