Indian Writer Lawyer - Activist Banu Mushtaq won the script history of International Booker's short story anthology by Heart Lamp.

This is the first book written in Kannada language, which won a prestigious award in Karnataka, southern India.

Deepa Bhasthi translates the story of the heart lamp into English.

Heart Lamp has stimulated the difficulties of Muslim women living in southern India in the thirty years from 1990 to 2023 with 12 short stories written by Mushtaq.

Mushtaq's victory came from behind Sand Tomb of Geetanjali Shree - translated into Hindi by Daisy Rockwell - won the award in 2022.

Her work is well known among book lovers, but Booker International's victory brings more attention to her life and literature, reflecting many of the challenges facing women in her story brought about by religious conservatism and a deeply patriarchal society.

It is this sense of self that perhaps helped Mushtaq make some of the nuanced characters and plot lines.

"In a literary culture that rewards wonders, the heart lamp sticks to the value of attention - life lives on the edge, the choice of nothing, just the power to stick with it. This is the quiet power of Banu Mushtaq," a comment in the Indian Express newspaper said.

Mushtaq grew up in a small town in southern Karnataka, and like most girls around her, he studied the Quran at school.

But her father was a government employee who wanted more people and recruited a convent school at the age of eight, where the medium of teaching was the official language of the state - Kannada.

Mushtaq works hard in fluent Kannada, but this strange tongue will become the language she chose for literary expression.

She still started writing in school and chose to go to college even if her peers got married and raised their children.

Mushtaq has been published for several years and takes place at a particularly challenging stage of her life.

Her short story appears in local magazines a year after she married a man she chose at the age of 26, but her early marriage was also marked by conflict and conflict - something she spoke publicly in several interviews.

"I always wanted to write, but there was nothing to write (about) because suddenly, after a love marriage, I was told to wear burqa and devote my family work. I became a 29-year-old mother with postpartum depression."

In another interview with Magazine of the Week, she talked about how she was forced to live within the four walls of the house.

Then, the shocking act of resistance freed her.

“Once, I felt desperate, and I poured white gasoline at myself, intending to set myself on fire. Thankfully, he (husband) felt this in time and hugged me.

In the Heart Lamp, her female role reflects this spirit of resistance and resilience.

“In mainstream Indian literature, Muslim women are often flattened into metaphors – silence or tendency in the moral arguments of silent patients or others. Mustark rejects both.

Mushtaq continues to serve as a journalist in the famous local tabloids and is associated with the Bandaya movement, which focuses on addressing social and economic injustice through literature and activism.

After leaving journalism ten years later, she worked as a lawyer to support her family.

She has published a lot of work in a legendary career spanning decades. It includes six collections of short stories, a collection of essays and a novel.

But her keen writing also makes her the target of hatred.

In an interview with Hindu newspapers, she talked about how she received threatening calls in 2000 after expressing her opinion on supporting women’s right to pray in mosques.

FATWA - a legal ruling under Islamic law - issued against her, a man attempted to attack her with a knife, and then he was overwhelmed by his husband.

But these incidents did not shock Mushtaq, who continued to write honestly.

"I have been challenging the religious interpretation of chauvinism. These issues are still at the heart of my writing even now. Society has changed a lot, but the core issues remain the same. Despite the development of the environment, the basic struggle between women and marginalized communities continues," she told the Week Magazine.

Over the years, Mushtaq's writings have won many prominent local and national awards, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award.

In 2024, the translation of five short stories of Mushtaq (Haseena and other stories) published between 1990 and 2012 won a translation award.