The Dog of Tithwal: Stories

by Saadat Hasan Manto, Khalid Hasan (Translator), Aatish Taseer (Translator), Muhammed Umar Memon (Translator), Vijay Seshadri (Foreword by)

Overview

“[Manto’s] empathy and narrative economy invite comparisons with Chekhov. These readable, idiomatic translations have all the agile swiftness and understated poignancy that parallel suggests." —-Boyd Tonkin, Wall Street Journal


Stories from "the undisputed master of the modern Indian short story" encircling the marginalized, forgotten lives of Bombay, set against the backdrop of the India-Pakistan Partition (Salman Rushdie)

By far the most comprehensive collection of stories by this 20th Century master available in English.

A master of the short story, Saadat Hasan Manto opens a window onto Bombay’s demimonde—its prostitutes, rickshaw drivers, artists, and strays as well probing the pain and bewilderment of the Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs ripped apart by the India-Pakistan Partition.

Manto is best known for his dry-eyed examination of the violence, horrors, and reverberations from the Partition. From a stray dog caught in the crossfire at the fresh border of India and Pakistan, to friendly neighbors turned enemy soldiers pausing for tea together in a momentary cease fire—Manto shines incandescent light into hidden corners with an unflinching gaze, and a fierce humanism.

With a foreword by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Vijay Seshadri, these stories are essential reading for our current moment where divisiveness is erupting into violence in so many parts of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953861009
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	09/14/2021
Pages:	418
Sales rank:	470,644
Product dimensions:	6.01(w) x 7.52(h) x 1.23(d)

About the Author

Saadat Hasan Manto wrote more than twenty collections of short stories, five radio dramas, three essay collections, one novel, and a handful of film scripts. A Muslim living in Bombay at the time of the India-Pakistan Partition, Manto was forced to migrate with his family to Lahore, where he wrote his most wrenching Partition stories. When asked why he sought to humanize the grit of Bombay and the upheaval of Partition, Manto retorted, “If you cannot bear my stories, it is because we live in unbearable times.”

Born in Kashmir, journalist, author, and translator Khalid Hasan is best remembered for his translations of the poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Saadat Hasan Manto's short fiction.

Muhammad Umar Memon was a critic, short story writer, and translator. He edited The Annual of Urdu Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

Read an Excerpt

Kingdom’s End
The telephone rang. Manmohan, who was sitting beside it,
picked up the receiver and spoke into it. ‘Hello, this is 4457.’
A delicate female voice came from the other end. ‘Sorry, wrong number.’
Manmohan hung up and returned to the book he was reading.
He had read this book nearly twenty times already, even though its last pages were moth-eaten; not because it was especially interesting, but because it was the only book in this barren office.
For the past week he had been the sole custodian of this office. Its owner, a friend of his, had gone away somewhere to arrange some credit.
Since Manmohan had no place of his own, he had moved here temporarily from the streets. During this one week he had read the book nearly twenty times over.
Isolated here, he bided his time. He hated any kind of employment.
Otherwise, had he wanted it, the job of director in any film company was his for the taking. But working for someone was slavery and he didn’t want to be a slave. Since he was a sincere, harmless person, his friends saw to his daily needs, which were negligible: a cup of tea and a couple of pieces of toast in the morning, two phulkas and a little bit of gravy for lunch, and a pack of cigarettes that lasted the whole day – that’s all.
Manmohan had no family or relatives. He liked solitude and was inured to hardship. He could go without food for days on end. His friends didn’t know much about him, except that he had left home while still very young and had found himself an abode on the Bombay pavements for quite some time now. He only yearned for one thing in life: the love of a woman. He would say, ‘If I’m lucky enough to find a woman’s love, my life will change completely.’
‘Even then you won’t work,’ his friends would say.
‘Work?’ He would answer with a big sigh, ‘Oh, I’ll become a workaholic.
You’ll see.’
‘Well then, fall in love with someone.’
‘No, I don’t believe in love that is initiated by the man.’
It was almost time for lunch. Manmohan looked at the wall clock opposite him. Just then the phone rang. He picked up the receiver, ‘Hello,
this is 4457.’
A delicate voice asked, ‘4457?’
‘Yes, 4457,’ Manmohan confirmed.
‘Who are you?’ the female voice asked.
‘I’m Manmohan. What can I do for you?’
When there was no answer, Manmohan asked, ‘Whom do you want?’
‘You,’ said the voice.
‘Me?’ he asked, somewhat surprised.
‘Yes, you. Do you have an objection?’
Manmohan was flummoxed. ‘Oh no, none at all.’
The voice smiled, ‘Did you say your name was Madan Mohan?’
‘No. Manmohan.’
‘Manmohan.’
Silence ensued. After some moments, he asked, ‘You wanted to chat with me?’
‘Yes,’ the voice affirmed.
‘Well then, chat.’
After a slight pause, the voice said, ‘I don’t know what to say. Why don’t you start?’
‘Okay,’ Manmohan said, and thought for a while. ‘I’ve already told you my name. I’m temporarily living in this office. Before, I used to sleep on the pavement, but now I sleep on the desk here.’
The voice smiled, ‘Did you sleep in a canopied bed on the pavement?’
Manmohan laughed. ‘Before I go any further, let me make one thing clear. I’ve never lied. I’ve been sleeping on pavements for a long time.
But, for about a week now, I’ve had this office all to myself, and I’m having the time of my life.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I found a book here. The pages at the back are missing. All the same,
I’ve read it . . . oh, about twenty times. If I ever get hold of the whole book, I’ll find out what became of the hero and heroine’s love.’
The voice laughed. ‘You’re an interesting fellow.’
‘Thank you,’ he said with mannered formality.
After a pause, the voice asked, ‘What’s your occupation?’
‘Occupation?’
‘I mean your work. What do you do?’
‘What do I do? Nothing, really. An idle man has no work to do. I loaf around all day and sleep at night.’
‘Do you like your life?’
‘Give me a few moments,’ Manmohan started to think. ‘The truth is,
I’ve never thought about it. Now that you’ve put the question to me, I’m asking myself whether I do or not.’
‘So did you get an answer?’
Manmohan took some time to reply, ‘No, I didn’t. But since I’ve been living it for so long, I suppose I must like it.’
The voice laughed.
Manmohan said, ‘You laugh beautifully.’
‘Thank you,’ the voice intoned shyly and hung up.

Editorial Reviews

09/13/2021

This sardonic collection from Manto (1912–1955), some of which appeared in previous translations in Bombay Stories, reflects the ruptures in India during the Partition. Many of the stories evoke human foibles, such as when a young man ensconced in an office pines for a woman he has only met over the phone in “Kingdom’s End,” which also pokes fun at religious concepts such as “the dominion.” The story ends on a darkly humorous note when the young man dies, after saying weeks earlier that he had been “dying to meet” the woman. The title story centers on a stray dog vacillating between a cohort of Pakistani soldiers and a cadre of Hindu soldiers positioned on two opposing hilltops, as each side attempts to secure the dog’s allegiance. In “Licence,” Abu runs a lucrative chauffeur business until he becomes enamored with Nestia, a young woman he eventually marries. Before the story ends, he’s in prison and she’s forced to give up coach driving for prostitution. Throughout, the author’s clever use of irony and dark humor speaks truth to power and to the characters’ flimsy received notions. Manto’s stories succeed as surprising reflections on the human condition. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Saadat Hasan Manto has a good claim to be considered the greatest South Asian writer of the 20th century. In his work, written in Urdu, he incarnated the exuberance, the madness, the alcoholic delirium of his time, when the country he loved cleaved into two and set upon each other"
—The New York Times

"An endlessly fertile storyteller, Manto charmed even his accusers . . . Many of his stories drench the murderous absurdities of intercommunal strife in bitter irony . . . His empathy, obliquity and narrative economy invite comparisons with Chekhov. These readable, idiomatic translations have all the agile swiftness and understated poignancy that parallel suggests."
—Boyd Tonkin, Wall Street Journal

"The Dog of Tithwal brings the streets of Bombay to life."
—Tammy Tarng, The New York Times

"Few fiction writers have captured the trauma of India’s partition as powerfully as Saadat Hasan Manto . . . Manto writes boldly yet concisely, as seen in these crisp translations, and his ability to create vivid characters is matched by a knack for building cinematic momentum . . . [a] splendid collection."
—Murali Kamma, The New York Journal of Books

"Manto, widely regarded as the foremost Urdu short story writer of the 20th century, writes tales of brutality, possession, and innocence. These translations of his work by Hasan and Memon illustrate the writer’s ability to regard everyone—crooks, the upper class, politicians, soldiers, housewives, and prostitutes—with an eye trained on humanity . . . A substantial collection from an important writer."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A substantial, posthumously published collection of stories from a celebrated Urdu writer."
—Laurie Muchnick

"This sardonic collection from Manto . . . reflects the ruptures in India during the Partition . . . Throughout, the author’s clever use of irony and dark humor speaks truth to power and to the characters’ flimsy received notions. Manto’s stories succeed as surprising reflections on the human condition."
—Publishers Weekly

"In the era of the Indian independence movement and the murderous and terrifying sectarian conflicts that led to the Partition of the Subcontinent into India and Pakistan, two major figures retained their moral balance, transcended their circumstances, and illuminated their world. One was Gandhi, a politician and maybe a saint. The other was Saadat Hasan Manto, an Urdu short-story writer who was anything but a saint."
— Vijay Seshadri, from the introduction

"Manto's irony and humanity raise him on par with Gogol."
—Anita Desai
"...visionary. A writer of special interest for anyone who cares about Pakistan, where so many forms of random-seeming violence crowd the news."
—Ali Sethi, The New Yorker
 
"It feels both astonishing and inspiring that such a modern writer was alive at the very birth of Pakistan."
—Sarfraz Manzoor, The Guardian
 
"The most extraordinary feature of Manto's writing is that, for all his feeling, he never judges. Instead, he urges us to try to understand what is going on in the minds of all his characters, the murderers as well as the murdered..."
—William Dalrymple, The New Yorker
 
"An errant genius."
—The Hindu
 
"Manto painted the women of Bombay in a way that few South Asian writers have been able to since."
—PopMatters

"I would travel anywhere with Manto. . . . He is magnificently immortal."
—Nadeem Aslam, author of Maps for Lost Lovers

"I read him 40 years ago and I meet kids who are reading Manto for the first time - you can actually see the light in their eyes. You can see their jaws dropping and they say, 'What is this? Who is this guy?'"
—Mohammed Hanif in The Guardian

"There is still no literary rival to Manto. . . . [And] as communalism, religious intolerance and enmity between India and Pakistan continue to grow, his stories are still highly relevant."
—The Independent

“Manto makes us care about all the victims, and about the killers as well as the killed – it is only by caring, by empathizing with them, that we can learn to overcome our prejudices and to sublimate our desire for revenge. Reading these stories with an open heart, we are enabled to transcend our political biases – which is perhaps the most radical stage of political development.” —Daniyal Mueenuddin

"Manto frequently expands his exploration of power to an international level, showing how the wishes and desires of individuals are crushed by the unrelenting press of history and the inner conflict induced by the need to project a religious or cultural identity. These are plainly written but powerful stories, which often lead us to uncomfortable and uncertain realisations."
—Declan O'Driscoll, The Irish Times

"Manto’s writing recalls that of Joseph Roth, whose portraits of Germany’s interwar underclass anticipated the madness to come more fully and accurately than any sociological study . . . Manto skillfully portrays what happens when people lack control over their fates, when the earth shakes and smoke rises, when life becomes easily bought and more easily discarded."
—Brian O'Neill, Necessary Fiction

"The tales in this volume are addictive, excellent portraits of a place and a time."
—Ananya Bhattacharyya, Washington Independent Review of Books

"Manto is an outlier, a freakish occurrence at a freakish time in South Asia. At the same time, this iconic enfant terrible is ageless because the world from which alcohol was for him the only escape . . . is still intact. In all his photographs, he looks absurdly boyish, his large eyes always wide open as if missing nothing, but incredulous at what he was seeing."
—Mukund Belliappa, Full Stop

From the Publisher

★ 2021-07-28
A celebrated Urdu writer’s posthumously collected short stories illuminate the human cost and the absurdity of the India-Pakistan Partition.

Manto, widely regarded as the foremost Urdu short story writer of the 20th century, writes tales of brutality, possession, and innocence. These translations of his work by Hasan and Memon illustrate the writer’s ability to regard everyone—crooks, the upper class, politicians, soldiers, housewives, and prostitutes—with an eye trained on humanity. Manto’s characters are forced to consider themselves anew as blood is shed and political boundaries are redrawn. The collection begins with “Kingdom’s End,” in which a series of seemingly random phone calls forces Manmohan to evaluate his life. “Do you like your life?” the caller asks him. He replies: “Give me a few moments....The truth is, I’ve never thought about it.” Manto’s stories often end with a twist, though, so Manmohan’s self-reflection is quickly made difficult. Manto frequently takes on both the divisions created by religion and the vows that people make to each other. In “Two-Nation Theory” and “For Freedom’s Sake,” lovers from different backgrounds are challenged by their unsustainable promises. “As long as India does not win freedom,” the husband says in the latter, “Nigar and I will live not as husband and wife but as friends.” The promise becomes a problem. Occasionally Manto’s purposes are more transparently allegorical, as in the title story, which succeeds in highlighting the atrocities and stupidities of war: When a stray dog crosses battle lines, soldiers on both sides debate its religion and immediately begin to torment the animal. Prostitutes are a frequent subject of Manto’s stories, though their worth is generally defined through male characters’ visions of their physical beauty. Each story makes Manto’s argument plain: Partition divided families and identities, and yet life continued to flourish.

A substantial collection from an important writer.

Kirkus Reviews