• Karnataka-based writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq’s short story collection ‘Heart Lamp’, translated from Kannada to English by Deepa Bhasthi, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 in London.

• It marks the first time a Kannada title has made it this far in the race for the coveted literary prize.

• The 12 stories, published originally between 1990 and 2023, will now go head-to-head with authors from across the world.

• The annual prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between May 2024 and April 2025.

The other five books shortlisted are: 

i) ‘On the Calculation of Volume I’ by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland.

ii) ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson.

iii) ‘Under the Eye of the Big Bird’ by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda.

iv) ‘Perfection’ by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes.

v) ‘A Leopard-Skin Hat’ by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.

• Each shortlisted title is awarded a prize of £5,000 – shared between author and translator.

• The announcement of the 2025 winning title will take place May 20 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London.

• In 2022, Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the coveted prize for Hindi novel ‘Tomb of Sand’, with Perumal Murugan’s Tamil novel ‘Pyre’, translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan making it to the longlist in 2023.

International Booker Prize

• The International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, has been awarded since 2005.

• It is a sister prize to the Booker Prize, awarded to a novel written in English.

• It was initially a biennial prize for a body of work, and there was no stipulation that the work should be written in a language other than English. Early winners of the Man Booker International Prize therefore include Alice Munro, Lydia Davis and Philip Roth, as well as Ismail Kadare and Laszlo Krasznahorkai. 

• In 2015, the rules of the original Booker Prize expanded to allow writers of any nationality to enter — as long as their books were written in English and published in the UK — the International Prize evolved to become the mirror image of the English-language prize.

• Since then it has been awarded annually for a single book, written in another language and translated into English.

• The vital work of translators is celebrated, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and translator. Each shortlisted author and translator also receives £2,500.

• Novels and collections of short stories are both eligible.

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