Saadat Hasan Manto

"Widely considered a reigning master of the modern short story, Manto vividly conjures life on the streets of Bombay - its prostitutes, pimps, gangsters, artists, writers, and those caught in the fore of the India-Pakistan partition. Deeply opposed to partition, Manto is best known for his portrayals of its violence and absurdities. From an ownerless dog caught in the firing squad at the border of the two countries, to neighbors turned enemy soldiers pausing for tea together in a short cease fire - Manto challenges the edges of geographic, cultural, and social boundaries with an unflinching and satirical gaze, and a powerful humanism. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Vijay Seshadri, this collection illuminates Manto's most vital and universal work, and - half a century later - remains a prescient text illuminating so many of the glaring and silenced conflicts that plague humanity today"--

Stories

The Dog of Tithwal

Ezra Alie

I received a complimentary ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

The Dog of Tithwal is a collection of short stories by the Urdu-language writer Saadat Hasan Manto, which were translated by Khalid Hasan and Muhammed Umar Memon. Born in Punjab, Manto eventually migrated to Pakistan in the aftermath of the partition between India and Pakistan and died in Lahore. Many of the stories in the collection deal with Partition itself or broader conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India and Pakistan. In one of Manto's best-known stories, "Toba Tek Singh," a Sikh patient in an asylum in Lahore struggles to find out whether his hometown is now part of India or Pakistan. 

While I enjoyed learning more about South Asia (as part of my ongoing quest to read more literature from the region), most of the stories included in The Dog of Tithwal were just okay to me. Many of them are on the shorter side for short stories, so I didn't always feel invested in the characters, and the frequently abrupt endings generally didn't work for me. I didn't think any of the stories were outright bad, but only a few of the many included really stood out to me. Manto's prose also seemed plain to me, which might be an effect of the translation. That being said, I do recommend The Dog of Tithwal for readers particularly interested in short stories and/or South Asian literature, especially in translation (which is often difficult to find in the US, I've learned!)

The Dog of Tithwal Stories

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