Bombay Stories - Softcover

Manto, Saadat Hasan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099582899 ISBN 13: 9780099582892

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2014

Synopsis

The bustling life of the most extraordinary city in the India subcontinent is captured in the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the greatest Urdu writers of the last century.
     Bombay in the 1930s and 1940s reigned as the undisputed cosmopolitan capital of the subcontinent -- an exhilarating hub of license and liberty, and a city bursting with both creative energy and helpless despondency. It was to be the favourite city and muse of the most celebrated short story writer of India and Pakistan, Saadat Hasan Manto. His hard-edged, moving stories remain, a hundred years after his birth, startling and provocative. In searching out those forgotten by humanity -- prostitutes, pimps, intellectuals, aspiring film actors, conmen and crooks -- Manto wrote about what it means to be human. 
     Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad'’s translations reach into the streets and capture Manto's world in contemporary, idiomatic English.

About this title

About the Author:

SAADAT HASAN MANTO has been called the greatest short story writer of the Indian subcontinent. He was born in 1912 in Punjab and went on to become a radio and film-script writer, journalist, and short story writer. His stories were highly controversial and he was tried for obscenity six times during his career. After Partition, Manto moved to Lahore with his wife and three daughters. He died there in 1955.

From Booklist:

When Manto arrived in 1930s Bombay, he fell in love with the city. For him, it was a place bursting with energy and at the same time filled with a hopeless despondency. Manto spent his most creative years there, and Bombay Stories is the result, a collection of 14 stories set in that thriving metropolis. Most of the tales revolve around what Salman Rushdie called Manto’s “lowlives.” Prostitutes, pimps, con men, thieves, and thugs inhabited the city’s dark side, while aspiring writers, actors, and intellectuals searched for fame. Manto depicts this lower strata of society in an almost loving way, with delicacy, grace, and a kind of Everyman quality, so that who they are becomes secondary to how they live. The simple narration and strong imagery reflect Manto’s keen powers of observation. Beautifully crafted and skillfully translated, the stories remain as startling and provocative today as they were when originally written. They will be for many readers a long-awaited and deeply satisfying introduction to one of India’s greatest storytellers. --Carol Gladstein

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0099582899
• ISBN 13: 9780099582892
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208