Telling the truth' The International Booker winner's powerful stories of Muslim women

Human beings and their basic nature are the same everywhere," said Banu Mushtaq.

- John Self

Human beings and their basic nature are the same everywhere," said Banu Mushtaq.

That is the intention of my writing. The theme is woman, the theme is marginalized people, the theme is to be a voice to the voiceless community.

Mushtaq, from the Karnataka region of southern India, had been "awake all night" on the morning after her book Heart Lamp won the International Booker prize - shared between Mushtaq and her translator Deepa Bhasthi, who also has had no sleep.

It is a year of firsts for the International Booker: this is the first time that a collection of stories has won; it's the first winner from the Kannada language; and it's Mushtaq's first book to appear in English. At 77, she is also the oldest winner.

Yet Mushtaq, a lawyer and social activist as well as a writer, has been publishing stories since 1981; Heart Lamp represents just a selection from her career. They are powerful accounts of the lives of Muslim women in Karnataka, portraying terrible experiences - domestic violence, deaths of children.

In the final story, a woman is glad she gave birth to a boy instead of another girl.

"At least we had not created another helpless prisoner of life like me." Do these stories reflect how things still are for women in the region? "Yes," said Mushtaq. "Even today. It starts from the home itself."