A rebellious yet human portrait of India's bustling Bombay, as told by one of the greatest Urdu writers of the last century: Saadat Hasan Manto.

'The undisputed master of the modern Indian short story' Salman Rushdie, Observer

In 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. It was also muse to the celebrated short story writer of India and Pakistan, Saadat Hasan Manto.

Manto's hard-edged, moving stories remain, a hundred years after his birth, startling and provocative. In searching out those forgotten by humanity - prostitutes, conmen and crooks - Manto wrote about what it means to be human.

Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad’s inspired new translations reaffirm the timelessness of Manto’s prose and revitalize it for a new generation of English-language readers. * Times Literary Supplement *
Here was a writer whose excellence and vision consumed his life… The writer proves that he knows the truth better than God. Reading Manto is like trying to understand an entire civilization in two lines. He spoke too much in few words, which invariably made the words sharp enough to pierce through our hearts. * Culture Trip *
The undisputed master of the modern Indian short story -- Salman Rushdie * Observer *
Manto's irony and humanity raises him on par with Gogol -- Anita Desai * Spectator *
One of the most gifted short-story writers produced by the sub-continent * Guardian *

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.