The Illuminated

In a world where regional languages are often marginalised, Banu Mushtaq's International Booker Prize win blazes bright

- Vineetha Mokkil

AFTER the publication of her short story collection Benki Male in 1999, Kannada writer-lawyer-activist Banu Mushtaq was severely criticised by Muslim community leaders. A knife-wielding assailant also attacked her at the time. Though it took her several months to recover from the trauma, she eventually went back to doing what she believes is a writer's duty: record the injustices you observe, write about them in an artistic way. If you see a way forward, share it. Trust your readers to draw their own conclusions. Never preach to them.

Seventy-seven-year-old Mushtaq has always been a crusader. For being a “critical insider”, rejecting religious dogma and shattering stereotypes, she has been ostracised by many in her community. She started writing in the 1970s and 80s—a period when powerful social movements were sweeping across Karnataka. A product of Kannada literature's progressive Bandaya movement, this Hassan native's writing springs from her close encounters with those relegated to the margins: farmers, Dalits, women, environmental activists. Her participation in people's movements shaped her creative life. She writes with empathy, straight from the heart, mining real-life experiences for her fiction. In May 2025, when her short story collection Heart Lamp, translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize, Mushtaq said that it felt like “a thousand fireflies lighting a single sky—brief, brilliant and utterly collective.”