Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal 7;
Fire Rain 23;
Black Cobras 41;
A Decision of the Heart 62;
Red Lungi 85;
Heart Lamp 99;
High-Heeled Shoe 112;
Soft Whispers 132;
A Taste of Heaven 150;
The Shroud 167;
The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri 187;
Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord! 199;
Against italics: Translator’s Note 209;
Translator’s acknowledgements 215;
Author’s acknowledgements 216.

In Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.