Banu Mushtaq
Banu Mushtaq is a writer, activist, and lawyer from Karnataka, in southern India.
She emerged as a powerful voice in the progressive protest literary circles of southwestern India during the 1970s and 1980s. Writing at the heart of the Bandaya Sahitya movement—which challenged entrenched caste and class hierarchies—she became one of the few prominent women among its influential Dalit and Muslim writers.
Mushtaq has authored six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection, and a poetry collection, all in Kannada. Her work has earned her some of the region’s highest literary honors, including the Karnataka Sahitya Academy Award and the Daana Chintamani Attimabbe Award.
Her writing has been translated into Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam. Heart Lamp, the first book-length translation of her work into English, features a story that also appeared in The Paris Review. In 2025, Heart Lamp won the prestigious International Booker Prize.
