The politics of exclusion
Manto’s radical treatment of women in his short stories explains why the progressives banished him in 1949
Manto spent the prime of his youth in Bombay and Delhi where he celebrated his poverty and prosperity, his successes and failures with the same zest for life. In 1948, betrayed by his friends, Manto decided to leave Bombay and move to Pakistan in the hope of a better life in the new country.
The historian of the individual
Manto is seen as a Marxist and as a chronicler of Partition, but never solely as a fiction writer
Literary critics are a sad lot, not only is their work necessarily derivative and posterior to creation, it must also formulate its criteria of success and failure from within the components of the fictional work under consideration.
Our case against Manto
Guardians of public morality and custodians of the Islamic Republic hit back at Manto on his centenary
Congratulations on your 100th anniversary. “What is there to celebrate,” you ask. “I am dead. And why are you, the judges of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, my eternal tormentors, celebrating my birthday?” We need to talk because you might …
He wrote what he saw – and took no sides
Manto has recorded Partition violence for posterity like no other writer has done
Pieced together from close observations of the experiences of ordinary people at the moment of a traumatic rupture, Manto’s stories are not only unsurpassable in literary quality but records of rare historical significance.
Can a convicted man serve the nation?
The immediate constitutional issue facing the country is whether a convicted man can continue as the chief executive of the country.
The opposition says Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gailani has been disqualified from the National Assembly due to his conviction in the contempt of court case.
Shah’s reign
Mira Hashmi talks to Naseeruddin Shah while he visits Lahore
‘Standing Behind Dead Doctor’. That is the rather inauspicious-sounding credit listed as the first ever on-screen appearance of one of the world’s (yes, the world’s) greatest living actors: Naseeruddin Shah. The year was 1967 and the film was the Rajendra …
