A history of partition seen through the life and fiction of one of the
subcontinent's most important modern writers
Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) was an established Urdu short story
writer and a rising screenwriter in Bombay at the time of India's
partition in 1947, and he is perhaps best known for the short stories he
wrote following his migration to Lahore in newly formed Pakistan. Today
Manto is an acknowledged master of twentieth-century Urdu literature,
and his fiction serves as a lens through which the tragedy of partition
is brought sharply into focus. In The Pity of Partition, Manto's life
and work serve as a prism to capture the human dimension of sectarian
conflict in the final decades and immediate aftermath of the British
raj.
Ayesha Jalal draws on Manto's stories, sketches, and essays, as well as
a trove of his private letters, to present an intimate history of
partition and its devastating toll. Probing the creative tension between
literature and history, she charts a new way of reconnecting the
histories of individuals, families, and communities in the throes of
cataclysmic change. Jalal brings to life the people, locales, and events
that inspired Manto's fiction, which is characterized by an eye for
detail, a measure of wit and irreverence, and elements of suspense and
surprise. In turn, she mines these writings for fresh insights into
everyday cosmopolitanism in Bombay and Lahore, the experience and causes
of partition, the postcolonial transition, and the advent of the Cold
War in South Asia.
The first in-depth look in English at this influential literary figure,
The Pity of Partition demonstrates the revelatory power of art in
times of great historical rupture.
