Banu Mushtaq

Banu Mushtaq (born 3 April 1948) is an Indian Kannada-language writer, activist, and lawyer from Karnataka. She is best known for Heart Lamp, a selection of her short stories translated by Deepa Bhasthi, which won the International Booker Prize in 2025. She has published six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection, and a poetry collection. Her work has been translated into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and English.

Personal life and activism Banu Mushtaq was born into a Muslim family in Hassan, Karnataka, on 3 April 1948. When she was eight years old, Mushtaq was enrolled in a Kannada-language missionary school in Shivamogga, on the condition that she must learn "to read and write Kannada in six months"; she exceeded expectations by beginning to write after a few days of school.

In contrast to community expectations, she attended university and married for love at the age of 26.

She was a reporter for the newspaper Lankesh Patrike

In 2000, a three-month "social boycott" was announced against Mushtaq and her family in response to her "advocacy of the right of Muslim women to enter mosques".

In the early 2000s, Mushtaq joined the civil society group Komu Souhardha Vedike in protesting efforts to prevent Muslims from visiting a syncretic shrine in Baba Budangiri, Chikmagalur district. Her work has been translated into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam, as well as, very recently, English. Her story Karinaagaragalu was adapted into the 2003 Kannada film Hasina by Girish Kasaravalli. Mushtaq was the first Kannada-language writer to have their work nominated for the prize.

The stories in the collection reflect Mushtaq's life as a journalist and lawyer, with a focus on women's rights and resistance to caste and religious injustice in her part of the country.

Chair of the Booker International judges Max Porter said that although the stories are feminist, and "contain extraordinary accounts of patriarchal systems and resistance", first and foremost they are "beautiful accounts of everyday life and particularly the lives of women".

Awards and recognition 1999: Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award 2024: PEN English Translate Award, for Deepa Bhasthi's translation of Haseena and Other Stories 2025: International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp, translated by Deepa Bhasthi

Mysore Dasara controversy In 2025, the Karnataka state government chose Mushtaq to inaugurate its annual Mysore Dasara celebrations. The Bharatiya Janata Party criticized selecting a Muslim to lead Hindu festivities, despite the 2017 festival being inaugurated by another Muslim author, K. S. Nissar Ahmed. Mushtaq's January 2025 video criticizing the association of Hindu goddess Bhuvaneshvari with the Kannada language as exclusionary was further cited by politician Pratap Simha as indicating her incompatibility.

Publications ಹಸೀನಾ ಮತ್ತು ಇತರ ಕಥೆಗಳು [] (compilation, Abhiruchi Prakashana, 2013) , Haseena and Other Stories (translated by Deepa Bhasthi, 2024) Heart Lamp: Selected Stories (compilation, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, And Other Stories, 2025),