Review:
This book is a collection of 10 stories by Manto translated by Aatish Taseer. I’ve always heard that Manto is very hard to digest and now that I’ve actually read him, I can understand exactly why
Unlike a lot of writers, Manto writes about brutal reality in a very captivating and strangely in a very beautiful way, there is so much ugliness in these stories but the way he presents it makes you keep reading
Anyway if I were to review each story individually, this would become a super long review because almost every story can be critically analysed and there is honestly so much to say, so I’ll keep it simple
Most of these stories have one thing in common - they repeatedly show how poverty, sexuality, violence and social prejudice can reduce ordinary people to objects rather than human beings and honestly, that’s not easy to digest, i mean we judge these characters through our own ideas of morality, honour and what a person should or shouldn’t do, so while reading, you constantly find yourself thinking “how can this character do this?” And that’s exactly what makes these characters human, they are not purely evil or purely kind, they are people shaped by their circumstances, desires, surroundings and the choices they make, that especially comes through in story like “RAM KHILAVAN”, where it becomes difficult to simply judge the character without thinking about what made him do the things he did
Okay now if I liked the stories so much, why only 2 stars???
Well, that fault lies with the translator honestly, Taseer has written a 26 page long introduction about how he wanted to learn urdu so that he could understand and read Manto in the original and yet the translation is extremely disappointing, the flow is just too bad, sentences are awkward, so instead of getting lost in the story, I found myself getting distracted by the translation itself
If you want to read Manto, honestly I’d recommend going for a hindi translation or better read original urdu (if you can read it ofc), I don’t think this translation ( or any other english translation for that matter) is the right way to experience his work for the first time!!
Forwarded fromMy Book Reviews!
9September 3, 2026 2.7K 3
