Saadat Hasan Manto

[kpjayan]

Not sure if we have a thread on him...

May 11th was the birth Centenary of the Indian born, lived in Pakistan after partition, Urdu writer Saadat Hasan manto.

Prolific writer in Urdu, mostly wrote short stories ( only one novel) apart from being a script writer(for films and radio) and journalist. His writing, mostly about the aftermath of the "bloody" partition of India and Pakistan ( scores of people on both the sides have died) and the plight of the poor people caught in between two countries, are widely read and appreciaed.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadat_Hasan_Manto

You can read his most acknowledged short story, "Toba Tek Singh", here.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/p...anslation.html?

[kpjayan]

Few articles in the Hindu Newspaper, to commemorate his birth Centenary ( 2 days ago)


http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article3410456.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/article3406394.ece

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article3406380.ece

[Aldawen]

Some years ago I came across a collection of his short stories and even shorter texts in German translation and was very impressed by the consequent denial of loyalties based on geography and religion and Manto's strong emphasis on humanity as an absolute value. Stimulated by this thread I just checked and found out that there's a second collection of his stories published in German, I'll try to get a copy of it soon.

[kpjayan]

However much I tried, I could not separate India from Pakistan and Pakistan from India.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper...cle3437854.ece

[Stewart]

About a month ago I read a couple of his short stories on the train to work. While the first was good - subtly capturing a young boy's arrival at puberty - I found it a bit more difficult to appreciate some of the others. This is, of course, because my knowledge of the history surrounding the Partition is lacking and so, some of the events described here, or the symbolic nature of these events, passed me by. With that in mind, I decided to leave the stories for now and come back at a later date, with a deeper knowledge of his characters' circumstances.