An anthology of short stories exploring the everyday lives of women in Muslim communities in Southern India has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Heart Lamp, by Indian author Banu Mushtaq, is a collection of 12 stories that serve as portraits of families living in tight-knit neighbourhoods, featuring spirited children, ambitious grandmothers, hapless husbands and troublesome brothers. Together, they offer vivid snapshots of human nature and quiet meditations on family.
Published separately in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2020, the collection was translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, who could also share the £50,000 (Dh235,036) prize with the author, when the winner is announced at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern on May 20.
The nomination marks the culmination of a remarkable five-decade literary career for Mushtaq, who began writing in the 1970s and went on to publish six short story collections, a novel, essays and poetry. Widely regarded as one of India’s most acclaimed authors, she has received major literary honours, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award. Heart Lamp is the first book-length translation of her work into English, following earlier editions in Urdu, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.
In an interview published on the Man Booker website, Mushtaq revealed Heart Lamp was curated from 50 stories spanning her six previous collections. The selection, she explained, was a response to the persistent societal discrimination faced by women in her native India. “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,” she said. “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, compelling me to write.”
Heart Lamp is one of six titles shortlisted this year for the International Booker Prize – and the only short story collection among five novels. The other contenders include On the Calculation of Volume I by Danish writer Solvej Balle, the first in a planned septology centred on an antiquarian bookseller caught in a time loop; Small Boat by French author Vincent Delecroix, inspired by the real-life tragedy of migrants who died while attempting to cross the English Channel in a dinghy in 2021; Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Japan’s Hiromi Kawakami, which follows an expatriate millennial couple adjusting to a new life in Berlin; and A Leopard-Skin Hat by French author Anne Serre, an intimate exploration of the narrator’s evolving bond with a childhood friend.
One title that didn’t make the final cut, after being longlisted in February, is The Book of Disappearance by Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem. The Arabic novel follows a young Palestinian man as he comes to terms with the death of his grandmother, a survivor of the 1948 Nakba.
“These are books about survival and self-preservation – about our indomitable instinct to keep going in the face of catastrophe, oppression, extinction or hopelessness,” the Booker Prize jury said in a statement. “In a world that can often seem full of despair, this is a shortlist that celebrates the human spirit – our capacity to endure and our impulse to live a better life.”
