Daniyal Mueenuddin Knihy

Widely renowned as the best short story writer in Urdu, Manto's stories were mostly written against the milieu of the Partition. Bitter Fruit presents the best collection of Manto's writings, from his short stories, plays and sketches, to portraits of cinema artists, a few pieces on himself, and his letters to Uncle Sam which have references to communism, Russia, politics after the Partition and his own financial condition. The concluding section of the book has acknowledgements and reminiscences from Saadat's friends and relatives. Bitter Fruit includes stories like A Wet Afternoon, The Return, A Believer's Version, Toba Tek Singh, Colder Than Ice, The Assignment, Odour, By The Roadside, Bribing the Almighty, The Kingdom's End, The Woman in the Red Raincoat, The Room with the Bright Light, The Great Divide, The Angel, Siraj, An Old Fashioned Man, The Price of Freedom, It Happened in 1919, The Girl from Delhi, A Man of God, Free for All, and A Tale of 1947. There is a collection of sketches too. Manto used to write radio plays and this book has one of the dramas he penned, called In This Vortex. His short stories bring out the most delicate nuances of human nature.

Mottled Dawn is a collection of Manto's finest and most powerful writings on the tragic Partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947. It includes ironic stories like "Toba Tea Singh," "Colder than Ice" and "The Dog of Titwal." Also to be found are his complex and engaging portrait "Jinnah Sahib" and his short and startling reflections on violence. Together the fifty sketches and stories in this collection bring to life the most traumatic episode in the history of South Asia.

The prevalent trend of classifying Manto’s work into a) stories of Partition and b) stories of prostitutes forcibly enlists the writer to perform a dramatic dressing-down of society. But neither Partition nor prostitution gave birth to the genius of Saadat Hasan Manto. They only furnished him with an occasion to reveal the truth of the human condition.My Name Is Radha is a path-breaking selection of stories which delves deep into Manto’s creative world. In this singular collection, the focus rests on Manto the writer. It does not draft him into being Manto the commentator. Muhammad Umar Memon’s inspired choice of Manto’s best-known stories, along with those less talked about, and his precise and elegant translation showcase an astonishing writer being true to his calling.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MOHAMMED HANIFIn the 1930s and 40s, Bombay was the cosmopolitan capital of the subcontinent - an exhilarating hub of license and liberty, bursting with both creative energy and helpless degradation. In searching out those forgotten by humanity - prostitutes, conmen and crooks - Manto wrote about what it means to be human.

In the spirit of James Joyce's "Dubliners," Mueenuddin's collection of linked stories illuminates a place and a people through an examination of the entwined lives of landowners and their retainers on the Gurmani family farm in Lahore, Pakistan.