Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi Win 2025 International Booker Prize

Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi have been awarded the 2025 International Booker Prize for their work, Heart Lamp, which features 12 short stories that were initially published in Kannada from 1990 to 2023. This collection delves into the daily experiences of women and girls living in patriarchal societies in southern India. The duo will split the £50,000 prize, in addition to receiving £2,500 each for being shortlisted. Max Porter, the judges' chair, commended the translation as 'genuinely new for English readers' and described it as 'a radical translation which ruffles language'. Established in 2005, this annual award recognizes outstanding international fiction translated into English and released in the UK or Ireland.