India, May 23 -- The International Booker Prize win for Heart Lamp, a collection of short stories that Banu Mushtaq wrote in Kannada and Deepa Bhasthi translated into English, seems to have unleashed in the Kannada literary sphere an abundance of what Gautama the Buddha used to call mudita - our capacity to rejoice in the good fortune and well-being of others.

Poet, essayist and short story writer Fathima Raliya, who is also the founder of a publishing house called Udugore Prakashan, says, "Although, Kannada is not my mother tongue, I feel a deep connection to it. It is a language that is attached to my soul. This international recognition to Kannada brings immense joy; it feels like I have received the award myself."

Fiction writer, es...