2025 Int Booker winner - Heart Lamp

[Henk]

Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq translated by Deepa Bhasthi (And Other Stories)

Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India through 12 stories. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, and praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.

Find out more about the International Booker 2025-longlisted book: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booke...

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Thanks for starting these

[Sonia]

If you look at And Other Stories on X they have given links to two previously published stories from Heart Lamp.

[Ruben]

Oh, that's a great tip Sonia. I think this is one of the lesser known works on the list, so reading two of the stories should give a good idea what it's like.

[Sonia]

Ruben wrote: "Oh, that's a great tip Sonia. I think this is one of the lesser known works on the list, so reading two of the stories should give a good idea what it's like."

I had the links in an email and read the second story which I found poignant. But as an FYI it was a once only article before paying for a subscription.

[Rachel]

I'm expecting this to arrive any day now in my & Other Stories subscription. Thanks for the heads up Sonia, maybe I'll get a head start on some of the stories!

[Joe]

Publication date been brought forward. I picked up a copy in Waterstones today.

[Rachel]

I’m bummed I’m still waiting on this as a subscriber. Mistakes happen, but of all the subscription books to be delayed I wish it hadn’t been this one! :/

[Paul]

I was very proud a bookshop had ordered two in specially for GY and I which Stefan Tobler had told me who they needed to contact to expedite. Just picked mine up and will pretend I didn’t hear that Waterstones have them!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

This feels very different to the rest of the list (albeit I have 3 to go).

Very deliberate decision to retain lots of Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words and honorifics with transliteration but no translation and with no italicisation. And “Same goes for footnotes. there are None”

Enjoying it though and like with Reservoir Bitches the last story very much pulls it together. That seems a deliberate choice here - 10 of the stories are from a 2013 Kannada language collection and 2 from a 2023 Kannada language collection. Those latter two are placed 10th and 11th with the 12th story moved from the first collection to be last.

[Paul]

Interesting on the 2924 stories. The list does seem to have some science fiction elements which I suspect come from Hur’s influence.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I really liked this

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Paul]

Impressed with this

And it would be a good winner - a story collection has not one before.

And a sample translation of the stories was one of the first six selected and commissioned for the PEN Presents program, designed to 'showcase sample translations, funding the often-unpaid work of creating samples, giving UK publishers access to titles from underrepresented languages and regions, and helping diversify the translated literature landscape'.

The program is now, for its third round of submission run in conjunction with the International Booker, so they'd be a nice link if they recognised a book from the first round.

[Paula]

According to And Other Stories website, the official pub date for Heart Lamp is still April 8. But Blackwell's have some copies available online, mine was despatched yesterday. If anyone has been struggling to find a copy, check out Blackwell's!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I understand they have sent some to a number of bookshops

[Rachel]

And Other Stories reached out this week to make sure my subscriber copy had arrived, which it hadn’t. Turns out once the books finally made it on a boat and across the Atlantic, the distributors just did nothing with them so they’ve been sitting for weeks. As with every small press I’ve dealt with, their customer service has been great and they sent me an ecopy to read in the meantime.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

That’s great.

[Stacia]

In the US, I was able to order (yesterday) a copy of this from Barnes and Noble. It arrives tomorrow.

[Rachel]

I finished my e-book copy, but the saga for obtaining a physical copy continues! U.S. subscribers got notice from And Other Stories yesterday that the books that first missed the boat, and then upon arrival in U.S. were held on to by distributors for weeks were actually damaged and that all of the non-damaged copies were given to bookstores and are sold out so the wait will be much longer.

[Rachel]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Very deliberate decision to retain lots of Kannada, Urdu and Arabic words and honorifics with transliteration but no translation and with no italicisation. And “Same goes for footnotes. there are None”"

I found it interesting the translator's argument for not italicizing or using footnotes. To me, it's a neutral decision, I don't think it disrupts the flow in one way or the other as the translator says (I actually think including footnotes disrupts the flow less because then I don't have to pick up my phone to Google a term, but I understand why footnotes are so rarely used).

The translator says, "By not italicizing them, I hope the reader can come to these words without interference, and in the process of reading with the flow, perhaps even learn a new word or two in another language."

Does this make sense to anyone? How does a word being italicized or not make someone better able to learn a new word in another language? I'm not suddenly able to understand or infer its meaning because a word is not italicized.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I agree on both Rachel. Neutral on italics and would prefer some footnotes - as you say the alternate is Google not staying in the text.

[Paul]

I don’t think I needed to Google while reading it. The context teaches one the meaning over time, and it isn’t necessary to know what every word means.

I thought both decisions were very sensible - it’s not an academic text.

And is also why I think this will win the prize, for the way it has embraced both translation and foreignness.

[Rachel]

I agree that it is a sensible decision and makes sense for the reason you stated—it’s not an academic text (this is what I was thinking of previously when I said I understand why footnotes are rarely used)—but that’s not the reason the translator gave which is why I think the quoted sentence above doesn’t make much sense. I understand more their argument that it “exoticizes” a word, even if I don’t personally find that to be the case.

Of course one doesn’t need to Google every word, but I do prefer to often because I also like to see the accompanying images, whether it’s a different style of dress or structure or what have you. I think how much a reader researches unknown words, literary allusions, historic events, or really any reference at all varies wildly from reader to reader.

[Paul]

I can sort of see her exoticises argument.

It’s a bit like every year when the OED decides certain words are now part of the English language - sometimes neologisms but sometimes foreign words which are now in common English use.

If the book was from French (or in the US perhaps from Spanish) one could imagine a lot of words being simply incorporated into the text naturally. I felt she was trying to do the same with languages which are less familiar.

[Robert]

I find italicized foreign words condescending- not as bad as having a sentence in the original language and the the English translation next to it (kite runner is the worst culprit of this imo) but close

[Erin]

Paul wrote: "I can sort of see her exoticises argument.

It’s a bit like every year when the OED decides certain words are now part of the English language - sometimes neologisms but sometimes foreign words wh..."

I came across an example of this when I read The Makioka Sisters recently, which was translated a while back now, apparently before Japanese cuisine had become more known in the west - having sushi italicized as a foreign word sure looked odd! It also did that thing where it had a little explanation of what the heck sushi was, which I'm 99% sure was added to the English text by the translator...

[Paul]

Paul wrote: "And is also why I think this will win the prize, for the way it has embraced both translation and foreignness."

Well said Paul :-)

OK I probably predicted every other book on the shortlist would win the prize (except Leopard Skin Hat) for different reasons. But I am still claiming bragging rights!!