HEART LAMP WINS INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

For the first time ever, the International Booker Prize for fiction was given to a collection of 12 short stories.

The coveted award was given to Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi.

The collection was written over more than 30 years and chronicles the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India.

Bhasti selected and curated the stories written between 1990 and 2023. The stories were originally written in Kannada, a language spoken by around 65 million people in southern India.

The prize changed its format and rules in 2016, allowing non-English fiction to be awarded prizes as well. The Booker Prize is still only open to English non-fiction books, and the ceremony will be held later this year.

Now, Mushtaq is the sixth female author to be awarded the prize since then, and Bhasthi is the first Indian translator and the ninth female translator.

Max Porter, the Booker Prize-longlisted author, announced the names of the winners at a ceremony held at London’s Tate Modern.

“This beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary social-political richness of other languages and dialects. It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive fights, faith, caste, power and oppression,” Porter said.

Heart Lamp managed to beat five other finalists to win the prize.

Image credit: The Financial Express