Banu Mushtaq’s Kannada short story collection on International Booker Prize longlist
London, Feb 25 (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 longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 in London.
Chosen among 13 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. It marks the first time a Kannada title has made it to the longlist of the GBP 50,000 literary prize – divided between author and translator.
“Exploring the lives of those often on the periphery of society, these vivid stories hold immense emotional and moral weight,” the judges said of Mushtaq and Bhasthi's ‘Heart Lamp’.
Its 12 stories set in the Muslim communities of southern India and published originally between 1990 and 2023 will now go head-to-head with authors from across the world. 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 six books shortlisted from the longlist for this year’s prize will be announced on April 8, with each shortlisted title awarded a prize of GBP 5,000 – shared between author and translator. 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.
“Translated fiction is not an elite or rarefied cultural space requiring expert knowledge; it is the exact opposite. It is stories of every conceivable kind from everywhere, for everyone. It is a miraculous way in which we might meet one another in all our strangeness and sameness, and defy the borders erected between us,” said Max Porter, chair of the judging panel for International Booker Prize 2025.
“In these books people are sharing strategies for survival; they are cheating, lying, joking and innovating. Some people are no longer of this earth, or they are sending visions from the future or from parallel universes. These books bring us into the agony of family, workplace or nation-state politics, the near-spiritual secrecy of friendship, the inner architecture of erotic feeling, the banality of capitalism and the agitations of faith,” he said.
The other titles on the longlist include: ‘The Book of Disappearance’ by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon; ‘On the Calculation of Volume I’ by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland; ‘There’s a Monster Behind the Door’ by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert; ‘Solenoid’ by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter;
‘Reservoir Bitches’ by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches; ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson; ‘Hunchback’ by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton;
‘Under the Eye of the Big Bird’ by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda; ‘Eurotrash’ by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles; ‘Perfection’ by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes; ‘On a Woman’s Madness’ by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott; and ‘A Leopard-Skin Hat’ by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.
Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, said: “The result is a longlist for anyone interested in what it means to be human, in what our planet looks like through the eyes of others, and in the power of fiction to challenge our assumptions and prejudices, and to bring different cultures together.
“Throughout, the impact that all these books have had on the judging panel is testament to the care and effort that goes into bringing them to the attention of English-language readers. The International Booker Prize offers a feast of fiction from around the world. Its work is more urgent than ever.”
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Maharashtra sets up state vaccination task force to strengthen immunisation programme
Mumbai (PTI): The Maharashtra government has set up a State Vaccination Task Force to strengthen the regular immunisation programme and review the progress of related campaigns, a health department official said on Monday.
The State Vaccination Task Force will comprise at least 29 members and will be headed by the administrative head of the health department, he informed.
The government has also constituted separate district-level and municipal vaccination task forces to improve implementation and address challenges at the grassroots level, he said.
Municipal task forces, chaired by respective civic commissioners, have been constituted in view of the vast urban population in Maharashtra and the role of civic bodies in implementing different health programmes.
The district-level task forces will function under the chairmanship of collectors.
"Complete immunisation of children at the appropriate age is an extremely simple, cost-effective and highly effective measure to reduce child mortality and the prevalence of diseases among kids. Immunisation is a powerful tool for reducing illness in children," maintained the official.
To ensure full vaccination of all children, the state government implements various campaigns from time to time as per the central government guidelines, he pointed out.
"Active participation and cooperation of other relevant government departments are essential (in making these campaigns successful)," according to the official.
The state-level body will review the regular immunisation programme, associated campaigns and vaccine-preventable diseases in detail. It will also conduct focused assessments of high-risk districts and municipal corporations, including vacancies at district, municipal and sub-district levels, availability of cold chain equipment, resource gaps and training requirements, he noted.
The state task force will review allocation and utilisation of funds for immunisation and ensure timely action by officers concerned based on reports from district and municipal task forces and state-level monitoring mechanisms, the official said.
It will also ensure active coordination and participation of other government departments in immunisation drives, while district and municipal task forces will carry out similar functions at their respective levels, the official added.
