Heartfelt tales

• Banu Mushtaq and her translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for 2025 for Heart Lamp.

• The book, written in Kannada, chronicles the lives of Muslim women and their anxieties.

• Mushtaq’s narratives highlight the inhumane cruelty inflicted upon women by religion, society, and politics.

• She emphasizes the power of words to create a world where every voice is heard, every story matters, and every person belongs.

• Mushtaq, a lawyer and activist, was inspired to write after hearing the suffering and helpless lives of the women she interacted with.

• The booker’s recognition could open doors for India’s rich regional languages to gain a wider readership.

• Mushtaq believes literature remains a sacred space where we can live inside each other’s minds and embrace stories from unheard corners and translations that defy borders.