And the 2025 International Booker Prize goes to...

"Our winning book is profoundly exciting in the line and across its whole.

The decisions the translator makes are radical and generative and the reader experiences these decisions viscerally. Our winning book shifts our perspective. It teaches us to listen. And it gives voice to the voiceless."

— Max Porter, International Booker Prize chair of judges

Max Porter, chair of judges, with International Booker Prize 2025 winners Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi at the ceremony on May 20 in London. © David Parry for the Booker Prize Foundation

Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi have won the International Booker Prize 2025 for Heart Lamp, the first collection of short stories to win the prize.

Written between 1990 and 2023, the 12 stories in Heart Lamp chronicle the lives of women and girls in patriarchal communities in southern India.

Mushtaq, a lawyer and major voice within progressive Kannada literature, is a prominent champion of women’s rights and a protester against caste and religious oppression in India.

She becomes the second Indian author to win the International Booker Prize after Geetanjali Shree in 2022.  

While the announcement occurred eight days ago, the impact of this historic win continues to resonate in the literary world:

‘My legal work sows the seeds of my stories’: International Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq, The Guardian, May 23

How a Booker Prize-Winning Work From India Redefined Translation, New York Times, May 26

Who is Banu Mushtaq, and why this Indian lawyer needs to be celebrated for her International Booker, The Times of India, May 27