Some books don’t just tell stories, they whisper memories you thought you had forgotten. Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, the winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize, is one such masterpiece. I finished it faster than any book I’ve ever read, not because I was racing through it, but because it refused to let me go.From the very first chapter, I found myself completely absorbed. Every story, every scene felt personal, like fragments of a world I once lived in. Perhaps that’s because I, too, come