Banu Mushtaq, Indian writer, lawyer and activist, won the International Booker Prize for her short story collection “Heart Lamp” on Tuesday. She becomes the first author of Kannada-language literature to get honured for the esteemed literary award for translated fiction.

“This moment feels like a thousand fire flies lighting a single sky — brief, brilliant and utterly collective. I accept this great honour not as an individuals but as a voice raised in chorus with so many others,” AFP quoted Mushtaq as saying at a ceremony at the Tate Modern gallery in London.

“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 added.

Who is Banu Mushtaq?

Based in Karnataka, Mushtaq, 77, is an activist, lawyer and writer, who writes in the Kannada language. Her works have also been published in Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam besides the recent in English.

She got registered in a Kannada-language missionary school in Shivamogga, with a condition that she learned “to read and write Kannada in six months”; however, she began to write after a few days of school.

Earlier, she was a reporter for the newspaper Lankesh Patrike. For a brief period, Mushtaq’s career also included at All India Radio in Bengaluru.

Mushtaq and her family were subjected to a three-month “social boycott” following her advocacy for Muslim women’s right to enter mosques. In the early 2000s, she became involved with the civil society group Komu Souhardha Vedike, participating in protests against attempts to prevent Muslims from visiting the syncretic shrine at Baba Budangiri in Karnataka’s Chikmagalur district.

Her other awards include Karnataka Sahitya Academy, Daana Chintamani Attimabbe, 2024 PEN English Translate Award.

“Heart Lamp” is a collection of 12 stories originally published between 1990 and 2023. They showcase everyday life in Muslim communities of southern India, emphasising on the experiences of women and girls.

Mushtaq will split the £50,000 ($67,000) prize with her translator, Deepa Bhasthi, who also played a role in selecting the stories.

Chair of the judges, Max porter, applauded “Heart Lamp” as “something genuinely new for English readers, stating, “A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation.”