New Delhi, May 22 -- Banu Mushtaq wrote her first short story when she was in middle school in Karnataka's Hassan town in the 1950s. That journey came full circle on Wednesday as the 77-year-old writer, lawyer and activist scripted history by winning the international booker prize along with her translator Deepa Bhasthi, becoming the first Kannada writer to clinch the prestigious award.

The winning book, Heart Lamp - a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of 30 years that exquisitely captured the everyday lives of Muslim women in Karnataka with wit and poise - beat five other titles from around the world. It is the first short story collection to win the annual prize that honours the best fiction translated into English....