Book Review: Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq

When I heard that Heart Lamp was the winner of this year’s International Booker Prize, I’ll admit that my first reaction was disappointment in that cover. I had my bookseller eyes on in this circumstance, where short story collections don’t generally sell that well and covers with nothing but text aren’t considered that appealing.

But I saw the book on display at my local library, realized I hadn’t read anything in translation in June yet, and decided a short story collection was just what I needed. And I’m really glad I picked this up. It’s sort of what I expected but also not quite like anything else I’ve ever read.

I’ve read several books set in India or from Indian authors over the years. Many of them have been by and about women. To my knowledge, this is the first book I’ve ever read translated from Kannada, a language that I just learned existed. This is a collection of stories by Mushtaq written between 1990 and 2023 and published in their original language. Deepa Bhasthi has brought them to an English audience and hopefully the win of the International Booker by author and translator will bring these stories to a wider audience. (More on the translation in a moment.)

These are stories about women. The women in these stories share a few commonalities but are also very diverse. Some are wealthy, some are old, some are widowed. What they share is a general cultural and religious setting. The stories all felt roughly set in the same region and within the Muslim religion. Mushtaq walks a fine line of respect for these things while also steadily revealing the ways that this culture and religion still oppress women. Even the wealthiest, most educated of women in these stories comes second class to the men around them. There are heavy expectations on them, often upheld just as much by the women as the men.

Some of the stories are heartbreaking – like the young mother who, after giving birth to three daughters, is unceremoniously abandoned by her husband. Under Muslim law he is allowed to remarry while she and her daughters starve. Or the sister who asks for her lawful share of family property but her brother, a respected religious man, puts her off over and over, instead spending his time to make sure that a dead man is interred in the correct cemetery. The stories are often funny, often appalling, quite frequently side-by-side. Red Lungi begins with the line “There is no end to the woes mothers face come summer vacation.” Which certainly made me laugh, reading it at the very end of June. But then the solution of the mother in this story is to arrange for circumcisions for her sons and their cousins, as well as the neighbourhood boys, knowing that this will subdue their energy for the summer holidays. From there the story unfolds as a magnifying glass on the disparities of class even in shared religion. This disparity is a common theme throughout the collection.

Deepa Bhasthi’s translation is, initially, not the easiest to read. As a complete outsider to this language, culture, and religion, I felt like a left was left untranslated. Frequently, titles, religious titles, and terms are left in the original language and I felt disorientated as I read, trying to figure out what or who was being referred to. Fortunately, many of these words appeared in multiple stories so I found myself being able to understand them through inference and context. I wouldn’t say that I could offer definitions with 100% confidence but I understand what was going on. Bhasthi’s postscript offers her reasoning for this choice and while I’m not sure it’s my preference, I do understand it after reading her explanation.