Firebrand writer Banu Mushtaq, and her International Booker Prize-longlisted anthology, Heart Lamp

Banu Mushtaq, first Kannada writer nominated for International Booker Prize, shares her journey as an advocate, politician, and activist.

An eight-year-old Muslim girl is brought to a school run by Christian missionaries in Karnataka’s Shivamogga in the 1950s. The management is reluctant to admit her in the Kannada medium as they are worried she will not pick up the language and might be better off in an Urdu school. After much persuasion by her father, the girl is granted admission on the condition that she learn to read and write Kannada in six months or else leave the school. To her teachers’ surprise, not only does little Banu manage the feat, she does it in just a few days of joining school.

On February 25, 2025, Banu Mushtaq, 76, scripted history by becoming the first Kannada writer to be nominated for the International Booker Prize for her short story collection Heart Lamp, translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi. The book has 12 stories published originally between 1990 and 2023.

Mushtaq, who is also an advocate, politician and activist, has had a six-decade-long writing career. Her first story appeared in a periodical called Prajamatha in 1974, a year after she married Mohiyuddin Mushtaq, a businessman from Hassan, about 190 km from Bengaluru. “Those were tough days. I had just given birth to our first daughter. My husband would bring books and magazines to keep my mind engaged,” says Mushtaq. Soon, she was introduced to Lankesh Patrike, a tabloid edited by poet and writer P. Lankesh (father of slain activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh), and began working there as a reporter. 

For over a decade, she filed news reports, mainly investigative stories. During this time, she also brought out short story collections in Kannada. Mushtaq was associated with Kannada literature’s Bandaya movement for social and economic justice, and in 1983, she was elected to Hassan City Municipal Council as a member.

In 1990, when Mushtaq left journalism following differences with Lankesh, she began practising as an advocate to support her family. “For the next 15 years, I focused only on my profession. Occasionally, I would find time to write stories and poems. But much of my time was devoted to my work,” she says.

In 2000, when her anthology Benki Male was published, Mushtaq faced criticism from community elders for stating in an interview that women too had the right to offer prayer in mosques. There was severe backlash, including an attempt on her life by a knife-wielding attacker. It took her years to overcome the trauma, says Mushtaq.

But the firebrand writer continued to enrich the Kannada literary arena with her stories about Muslim families with women characters who fight for their rights and assert themselves. Over the decades, she has published several books, including Hejje Moodida Haadi (1990), Benki Male (1999), Edeya Hanate (2004), Safeera (2006), Haseena Mattu Itara Kathegalu (2015) and Hennu Haddina Swayamvara (2022). Her stories have been translated into Malayalam, Tamil, Punjabi and Urdu besides English. She won the Karnataka State Sahitya Academy award in 1999.