Banu and Deepa awarded the Booker Prize for their story collection, Heart Lamp shines.

• Banu Mushtaq, a Kannada writer, lawyer, and activist, won the International Booker Prize for 2025 for her collection of 12 short stories, Heart Lamp.

• The collection, written between 1990 and 2023, was translated by Deepa Bhasthi and won the prize.

• This is the first win for Kannada and the first time in the prize’s history that a collection of short stories has been honored.

• Mushtaq’s work narrates the experiences of Muslim women in a patriarchal society.