The International Booker Prize recognises the essential work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and the translator. The shortlist for this year's prize was a feast for fiction readers, with six books spanning themes of identity, the migrant crisis, contemporary middle-class experience and what it is to be human. They are inventive, thought-provoking, entertaining and unforgettable books and all published by independent publishers.

At a ceremony at the Tate Modern London on Tuesday 20th May, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize 2025. Heart Lamp, the first collection of short stories to win the prize, is published by Sheffield-based And Other Stories and was translated from Kannada by Bhasthi, who became the first Indian translator to win the prize. The twelve stories draw from Mushtaq’s thirty-five-year career and chronicle the lives of women in patriarchal communities in southern India. They are exquisite, vivid, moving and have a quiet humour – we can’t wait for more readers to discover them and the whole International Booker Shortlist. Our congratulations to all.