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The most widely read and the most translated writer in Urdu, Saadat Hasan Manto constantly challenged the hypocrisy and sham morality of civilized society. Out of this rebellious streak, and fuelled by the burning restlessness of his imagination, he produced a powerful body of work that continues to challenge complacency and demand attention. More than half a century after his death at the age of forty-three in Lahore, he remains anathema to the establishment. Saadat Hasan Manto wanted to be remembered as the greatest short-story writer ever; as his epitaph would have it, his only competitor is God. Indeed, he is best known for his Partition stories, where he lays bare the absurdity of the religious divide that would forever unhinge the lives of two nations. No other writer has been able to capture the devastation of Partition as Manto has. But, as this exhaustive anthology shows, Manto
