Book Box: Heart Lamp wins the Booker - Now what?

Does reading a Booker prize winner feel like homework ? Here’s what you can do to deal with literary FOMO

Dear Reader,

Reading is above all a pleasure and we want it to stay that way.

A few days ago, I received a text message from my student Anisa.

“It’s great that Heart Lamp has won a big literary prize. But now I have a problem. It’s one more book everybody is talking about, one more book I feel compelled to read. Every month there seems to be a new literary prize in the news - the Booker prize, the International Booker, the Pulitzer, the Woman’s prize, the Nobel Prize. Then there’s the JCB prize, the Crossword prize - the list of prizes is as long as Hanuman’s tail!

Honestly, I am confused. There is all this talk of how we shouldn’t just be swayed by prizes. And then when a book wins a prize, everyone lines up to read it.

A few years ago, I picked up a book that had won this same prize. It was so slow, and hard to understand. Nothing happened - maybe it was too ‘arty’ for me. I stopped after 40 pages but I felt like a loser giving up, I felt there was something wrong with me that I didn’t ‘get’ the book that a distinguished jury had given the prize to.

And then there are so many prizewinning books that are emotionally triggering, like Shuggie Bain or Prophet’s Song - reading them feels depressing. What is it about these prizewinning books, and why do they feel like a pressure for me?

Is it wrong of me to want to enjoy my reading? And is it weird that I feel burdened by having to read these prize winning books ? And do you think I should read Heart Lamp ? Please help.

Your (confused) student Anisa

Dear Anisa, I get your dilemma. The list of literary prizes is long. What’s interesting though is that each prize has its own personality - the Pulitzer for instance is purely American, the Nobel Prize is given for an author’s body of work and not for a single book.

The International Booker prize is special because it picks literature in translation.

It’s different - and not just because it has been won by Indian books twice already - Tomb of Sand (2022) and Heart Lamp (2025). Last year the prize went to a German novella, the year before to a Bulgarian novel.

This year’s win means that Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq and translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, will now be in the international spotlight. This means these slice-of-life stories, with the real life struggles of Muslim women in Karnataka will now find their way to bookstores around the world - the Strand in New York, Foyles and Waterstones in London, the large chains and small independent bookstores all over the world.

This also means that India will be seen in a more nuanced way, in terms of quietly courageous women and not just in terms of a caricatured version of a rich woman exploiting her poor driver, and sending him to jail for her own rash driving, as happens in the story of the The White Tiger, the 2008 Booker prizewinner.

So here’s my take - You don’t have to read every prizewinner—prizes are just one more way of curating books, of bringing certain titles to your notice, titles you may not have come across otherwise. So read the description, and a review or two, and only if the prizewinning book speaks to you, give it a try. Maybe intersperse this book with lighter fun reads - because reading is above all a pleasure and we want it to stay that way.

Heart Lamp offers a chance to see the world through a new lens—but only if you’re ready for it.

If you do pick it up, here’s three things to consider

1. Maybe begin with reading just one story. You could start with Stones for Shaista Mahal. Or dip into the centre with Fire Rain, with the story of the maulvi and the discarded wife. Or with the title story. No life is too small to be worthy of notice, no story is too small to tell, say these selected short stories.

2. Read Heart Lamp to see how powerful fiction can be in giving voice to the powerless and how a story can bring small moments of quiet courage into the spotlight.

3. Be part of a global conversation with readers all over the world - we may be different but here’s how we live and love. In a world that increasingly tries to divide us, here is where we can live inside each other’s minds, if only for a few pages.

(Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya’s Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or reading dilemmas, write to her at sonyasbookbox@gmail.com. The views expressed are personal)