Banu Mushtaq’s Kannada short story collection ‘Heart Lamp’ on International Booker Prize shortlist
London, Apr 9 (PTI): Karnataka-based writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection ‘Heart Lamp’, translated from Kannada to English by Deepa Bhasthi, was on Tuesday shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 in London.
It marks the first time a Kannada title has made it this far in the race for the coveted GBP 50,000 literary prize – divided between author and translator.
Shortlisted among six worldwide titles, Mushtaq’s work appealed to the judges for its “witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating” style of capturing portraits of family and community tensions.
“Stories about encroaching modernity, as told through the lives of Muslim women in southern India. An invigorating reading experience,” reads the judges’ reason for including it on the shortlist.
The 12 stories, published originally between 1990 and 2023, will now go head-to-head with authors from across the world.
“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,” Mushtaq said in a statement.
“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. I do not engage in extensive research; my heart itself is my field of study,” she said.
The book’s translator, Deepa Bhasthi, added: “For me, translation is an instinctive practice, and each book demands a completely different process. 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.”
In a statement, Penguin Random House India said, "This achievement marks a historic moment, with Heart Lamp becoming one of the very few Kannada-language works to be recognised at this level".
Moutushi Mukherjee, Penguin Commissioning Editor who worked on the book, said, "To see Heart Lamp on the International Booker shortlist is an extraordinary affirmation of the power of Indian regional literature and the importance of translation".
The annual prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between May 2024 and April 2025.
The other five books shortlisted from the longlist for this year’s prize are: ‘On the Calculation of Volume I’ by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland; ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson; ‘Under the Eye of the Big Bird’ by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda; ‘Perfection’ by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes; and ‘A Leopard-Skin Hat’ by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.
Max Porter, International Booker Prize 2025 Chair of judges, said: “This list is our celebration of fiction in translation as a vehicle for pressing and surprising conversations about humanity. These mind-expanding books ask what might be in store for us, or how we might mourn, worship or survive. They offer knotty, sometimes pessimistic, sometimes radically hopeful answers to these questions.
“Taken together they build a miraculous lens through which to view human experience, both the truly disturbing and the achingly beautiful. They are each highly specific windows onto a world, but they are all gorgeously universal.”
Each shortlisted title is awarded a prize of GBP 5,000 – shared between author and translator – and the announcement of the 2025 winning title will take place May 20 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London, with the winning author receiving GBP 25,000 and the translator or translators dividing the other half of GBP 25,000.
In 2022, Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the coveted prize for the first-ever Hindi novel ‘Tomb of Sand’, with Perumal Murugan’s Tamil novel ‘Pyre’, translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan making it to the longlist in 2023.
Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, adds: “With all six books on the list published by independents for the first time, I'd like to thank the publishers for their ongoing commitment to bringing so many original and exciting international writers and translators to English language readers.
“Their passion, along with that of the many booksellers and librarians championing global writing, has no doubt helped to fuel a very welcome boom in translated fiction in the UK and Ireland.”
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UT with dual power structure 'worst form of govt', says Omar Abdullah
Srinagar (PTI): Terming the current administrative structure in Jammu and Kashmir the “worst form of government”, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has called for an urgent shift toward full statehood while acknowledging that significant progress has been made in narrowing differences with the Centre over the transaction of business rules.
The chief minister also hit out at vested interests making efforts to create a political wedge between Jammu and Srinagar, saying “they have failed and they will continue to fail”, and highlighted the restoration of the traditional biannual shift of the capital known as ‘Darbar Move’ as a vital bridge in narrowing the emotional divide between the two regions.
Speaking with PTI, Abdullah argued that the logic behind treating a territory with 90 elected legislators on par with smaller regions like Puducherry, which has only 30, remains incomprehensible, and reiterated his earlier stand that a dual power system where two power structures exist is a "recipe for disaster”.
“Can you not see the difference between a tiny one with 30 MLAs and one with 90 MLAs? And you still believe that this current system is beneficial to Jammu and Kashmir after everything that happened last year?” the chief minister asked while referring to the Pahalgham tragedy, pointing out that keeping elected representatives out of the law and order situation was doing no good.
He specifically noted that the size and scale of Jammu and Kashmir demand a governance model where the elected representatives are fully responsible for administration.
“I continue to maintain that view. I continue to believe that a system of Union territory with an assembly is by far the worst form of government that you can come up with,” Abdullah told PTI here recently.
The chief minister highlighted that several key institutions, including universities, the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, and the Power Development Corporation, should have automatically come under the domain of the elected government.
“I am not even arguing on the central services, law and order, and police. As a Union territory, those are automatically within the domain of the unelected government. But these were institutions that were previously the responsibility of the elected government. And they should be,” Abdullah said.
Despite these friction points, Abdullah expressed optimism, stating that his government and the Government of India are close to reaching an agreement on the rules of business and that a formal proposal for the appointment of a new advocate general has finally been dispatched to the appropriate authorities.
“Again, as I said, we have made significant progress on these issues,” he said.
On the long-standing issue of summary dismissals of government employees without judicial inquiry, Abdullah described the process as arbitrary, opaque and unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny.
This practice did not originate with the current lieutenant governor's administration but was initiated during the previous BJP-PDP coalition government, he said.
“Look, everyone has the right to prove their innocence. For some reason, these employees were not given that opportunity. And I have no doubt that going ahead, many of these people will return to government service on the back of relief from the court.
“We will not be able to defend the dismissal of these employees in the courts. It will happen, you mark my words, because the process is arbitrary. The process is opaque. There is no clarity and transparency in the process. Ultimately, we will not be able to bear up to judicial scrutiny," he said.
Referring to the promises made by his party, the National Conference, Abdullah detailed the operationalisation of his poll promises, including 200 units of free electricity and six free cooking gas cylinders for the poorest households, underlining that power subsidy is being provided to the poorest of the poor.
He argued that anyone above the poverty line should pay market rates for electricity to ensure that state resources are prioritised for the most vulnerable.
“Rich people shouldn't even be getting subsidised electricity. If I could, though obviously I can't do it in a single stroke, I would like to remove subsidised electricity from all these rich people.
“Anybody above BPL (Below Poverty Line) should not be paying subsidised rates for electricity. They should pay the market rate,” he said.
Beyond direct welfare, Abdullah highlighted the restoration of the ‘Darbar Move’ and the introduction of free education and bus travel for women as key milestones in his 20-month-old administration.
Speaking on the composite culture of J-K, Abdullah said the traditional biannual shift of the capital has allowed a new generation of employees from Jammu, who had never worked in the Valley before, to bond with their Kashmiri counterparts.
“The distance between Jammu and Kashmir has reduced to a great extent,” Abdullah said, adding that the two regions historically come together during times of adversity, whether after natural disasters or security crises.
Replying to a query on Kashmiri Pandits who migrated to various camps in Jammu, Abdullah said the question needs to be asked of the BJP as to why they are still in camps.
“Please ask the BJP how many more elections do they want to exploit their (Kashmiri Pandits’) votes before actually doing something to bring them back,” Abdullah said.
Terming the migration “deeply unfortunate”, Abdullah said, “We want those who left in the late 80s, early 90s, to come back. I have always maintained that they left because their sense of security was snatched away. They will come back only when that sense of security is restored. And we have not been able to do that so far.”
Crediting former prime minister Manmohan Singh for building the Jagti township in Jammu for migrants and creating a job quota for them, Abdullah said that nothing more has been done for the community since then.
To a question on dynastic politics following the recent defeat of M K Stalin in Tamil Nadu, Abdullah dismissed the idea that the defeat of established leaders is a verdict on their lineage, and argued that belonging to a political family only "opens a door" but does not guarantee a seat at the table.
“What keeps it open is your own performance,” Abdullah said, pointing out that even non-dynastic leaders like Mamata Banerjee faced electoral setbacks.
He also dismissed rumours of an imminent Cabinet reshuffle in J-K as “absolute lies”.
