Saadat Hasan Manto (1912–1955) needs no introduction. One of the greatest stars of Urdu literature, Manto published over twenty collections of short stories in a literary career spanning almost two decades. Several of these have been adapted into films and plays that have won a multitude of awards and his stories about the 1947 Partition remain some of the best accounts ever written on the catastrophic event. This book is the first of a three-volume series which will contain all of Saadat Hasan Manto’s 255 known stories translated into English for the very first time. Volume I collects fifty-four stories and two essays written by Manto about his time in Bombay and Poona in colonial India. The anthology includes well-known stories like ‘Mummy’ and ‘Janki’, which provide rare insights into the Poona film industry; the fascinating story of ‘Babu Gopinath’; and ‘My Marriage’ and ‘My Sahib’, two essays that read almost like stories. These meticulous translations by award-winning writer and translator Nasreen Rehman, distil the aura that Manto creates of a time, a place, and a moment.
