Heartlamp is a career-spanning selection of eleven stories published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023. Mushtaq began writing as one of the few women authors within the progressive Bandaya literary movement in southwestern India in the 1970, and in this collection it's the everyday lives of Muslim girls and women--daughters, homemakers, surgeons, lawyers--she so exquisitely cherishes and captures. Mushtaq's dry and gentle humor, her relatable and intensely real personalities, and her fiery social criticism mark her as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, whose stories build disconcerting emotional heights out of a plain but rich spoken style. This is a collection sure to be read for years to come.