Heart Lamp Broke My Heart — And Changed My Mind

What I Expected

I was as excited as a child at Christmas when Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp won the Booker Prize. Yeah, I was one of those kids who only looked for book-shaped presents from Santa.

Having lived in Bangalore, the bustling heart of Karnataka, I thought — finally, a book set in the world I knew, inhabited by the kind of warm, spirited, resilient people I’ve known all my...