Bahrain will always have a place close to the heart of Banu Mushtaq, the 2025 winner of the International Booker Prize ... in more ways than one.
When the social activist, lawyer and author of Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, visited her daughter Lubna Hijab, also a lawyer, in Bahrain in 2022, she suffered a heart attack while out for dinner with family members.
Without the prompt response of Bahrain’s health service she may not have survived to win the vaunted international literary prize.
Ms Mushtaq and her family, who have lived in Bahrain for more than 20 years, recollected the ordeal in an interview with the GDN during her recent visit to the kingdom. “On June 1, 2022, we went out for dinner in Adliya, and afterwards, my mother-in-law collapsed,” said her son-in-law Noor Mohammed.
“It was a very scary moment but the ambulance showed up quickly, taking her first to Salmaniya Medical Complex and then to the Mohammed Bin Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa Cardiac Specialist Centre.
“It was phenomenal to see how rapidly the medical personnel responded and guided us through the process. That night, she had a heart surgery during which they placed a coronary stent, saving her life.
“They also told us about two additional blocked arteries that would need to be cleared in a later operation. And, while we were expecting a significant medical bill, we didn’t have to pay anything – it was amazing to see Bahraini doctors and medical professionals take care of her, even though she was not a resident or citizen.”
Ms Mushtaq, 77, explained that she had been conducting research during this visit to eventually write a book centred on Bahrain, which had really impressed her with its commitment to peaceful coexistence.
Due to her medical challenges, as well as the soon-to-come promotion of her International Booker Prize-winning book Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, this project has since been put on hold.
Upon recovery, Ms Mushtaq returned to India, and a few months later underwent a second heart surgery to remove the artery blockages.
On the day that she went into surgery in Bangalore, she signed the paperwork to allow Deepa Bhasthi to translate some of her stories from the anthologies Ms Mushtaq had published between 1990 and 2006.
“Until then I had not seriously thought of translating my books into English,” she added. “They were translated into local languages and sister languages – Dravidian languages, South Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Punjabi and only one or two stories were translated into English.”
In 2024, Ms Mushtaq’s Haseena and Other Stories, translated by Ms Bhasthi, won the PEN English Translate Award and this year, Heart Lamp went on to be longlisted, shortlisted and then winning the International Booker Prize.
“When we were longlisted and shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, I was happy and quite excited – it was the first time a book originally in Kannada had entered the longlist for the international prize!” Ms Mushtaq added.
“Once we were longlisted and shortlisted, the media attention started to grow. However, my agent was still saying that it would be a long shot for us to win, because a collection of short stories had never won the prize.
“Eight of us, including my daughters and some of my grandchildren went to London, where I was supposed to attend the award ceremony. Even though my agent was being realistic, I still wrote my acceptance speech early, because something told me that I could be winning this prize.”
The journey to London brought its own drama, as her daughter Lubna Hijab was not able to get her visa, and to top it off, Ms Mushtaq’s suitcase containing essential medication and a brand new Mysore silk saree for the award ceremony, was lost en-route.
While the family came together and arranged for medication to be brought to London through family friends, Ms Hijab’s visa finally came through and off she went to London, carrying with her an Indian saree from a retail store in Bahrain for her mother to wear at the event.
“When we got there, we were initially told that only one person could accompany my mother to the award ceremony,” Ms Hijab added. “However, I pleaded with the organisers and they agreed at first to give us one more ticket, but at the last minute, they added another spot, saying that this could be a significant moment.
“I only understood later what they meant – it was incredible that all three of us daughters could be there in person as my mother went up to accept the prize.”
Ms Mushtaq’s short stories focus on the experiences of Muslim women in South India, addressing themes of gender inequality, faith and societal pressures, written with dry humour and emotional depth.
During her acceptance speech, Ms Mushtaq acknowledged the magnitude of her award, appreciating how it brought attention to Kannada literature and marginalised voices in the field. “These are stories centred around the life of Muslim women in the southern part of India, but they are universal in nature,” Ms Mushtaq told the GDN.
“Wherever patriarchy is there, wherever a woman is subjected to subjugation, where she is enslaved, and the way institutionalised violence is cast against her – in all those areas, these stories apply.
“It was important for me to win this prize, because I spoke about people and relationships everywhere, with a hope for peaceful coexistence, which I do see here in Bahrain, whereas back home, there is a lot of institutional discrimination among people.”
As an example, she cited the 2022 example of Muslim students not being permitted to wear hijabs at a college in Karnataka, during which she had written columns endorsing their religious rights and freedoms.
Ms Mushtaq has been in a whirlwind of media appearances since her International Booker Prize win, doing a reading at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Scotland just before stopping in Bahrain on her way back.
She is also travelling to Sri Lanka and Indonesia later this year. However, once done, she hopes to sit down and write her autobiography, detailing 35 years as an author, her lifelong work as a social activist, and perhaps, just perhaps, her memories of the little kingdom that kept her lamp burning as she brought her heart’s voice to readers around the world.
naman@gdnmedia.bh
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