Sadaat Hasan Manto: A Profile
// January 19th, 2010 // Articles
“Saadat Hasan will die one day,
But ‘Manto’ will never die”.
via Sadaat Hasan Manto: A Profile compiled by Aparna Chatterjee.
Read Toba Tek Singh (one of Manto’s more famous short stories)
Related posts:
I’m really enjoying Manto at this moment, I’ve just finished reading Ganje Farishte and am glad that someone is paying tribute to this great writer. Another great Urdu writer is Premchand, I will be reading his Bazaar-e-Husn next, it’s apparently one of the greatest novels in modern Indian literature. Do recommend other good writers that I should read.
im guessing you’ve read umrao jaan then? similar vein to bazaar – e – husn (which i havent read) and an incomparable insight into lucknow’s cultural zenith.
Patras bokhari and his urdu ki akhri kitaab is also considered to be a modern classic. (Patras, incidentally, a press attache at the UN, also wrote some interesting and poignant english too in his day).
http://www.patrasbokhari.com/ has more
Robert Frost on / for Patras:
Nature within her inmost self divides
To trouble men with having to take sides.
If you get chance to read up more about him, you’ll see the point Frost was trying to make.
Incidentally, if memory servers – one of Bokhari sahib’s more illustrious students was Faiz. now THAT is also an absolute must!
*** update **
tHIS ESSAY IS NOT AN ATTEMPT TO COMPARE EVERY ASPECT OF THE TWO NOVELS
NOR TO JUDGE THEIR RELATIVE MERITS, BUT TO COMPARE CERTAIN KEY AREASóTHE
WAY IN WHICH THE TWO NOVELS TRACE THE DECLINE IN STATUS OF THE COURTESAN IN
iNDIAN SOCIETY, THE TREATMENT OF UMRAO AND sUMAN AS THE TWO ìHEROINESî
AND THE ATTITUDES OF THE AUTHORS TOWARD (FALLEN) WOMEN. iN ADDITION TO
THESE MAIN THEMES, i WANT TO EXAMINE SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES IN THE URDU
AND HINDI VERSIONS OF bāZāR-E ḤUSN AND sēVāSADAN.
http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/24/05SafadiEssay.pdf