Ayesha Jalal: ‘Manto is best read in his own language’

LAHORE:

“It’s a shame children here have to rely on English translations to understand Manto. These translations were meant for foreigners. Manto is best read in his own language,” historian Ayesha Jalal said on Sunday.

Dr Jalal, a grandniece of short story writer Saadat Hasan Manto, spoke about her book on Manto, The Pity of Partition, on the second day of the Lahore Literary Festival. The session was moderated by Ali Sethi.

She said the book was divided into three parts: stories, memories and histories.

Dr Jalal said Manto embellished a historian’s craft into fictional narrative. She said he had beautifully captured the cosmopolitanism of the then Bombay. When asked about what ‘cosmopolitanism’ meant, she said, “It actually means openness to different cultures and languages. It doesn’t end differences but creates an ambience that is conducive to dialogue.”

Dr Jalal said Manto had written his best short stories after the Partition. “He would still have been a great writer if he hadn’t experienced the Partition, but it did help him write some of his best works,” she said.

She said Manto was not just a short story writer. “He was a fantastic social critic,” she said. He was friends with many progressive writers but chose not to be labelled.

“Even the worst characters in his stories have some goodness,” she said. Manto wrote about real life characters, his own experiences or those he had heard about, said Dr Jalal.

When asked to comment on similarities of Manto and French writer Guy de Maupassant’s style, Dr Jalal said Manto had translated Maupassant’s stories and was influenced by him, but did not copy him.

She read out passages from Manto’s letters to Uncle Sam. “Manto was charged with obscenity. It is more important that he was acquitted. This shows that even judges at that time were liberal enough to acquit him,” she said. “History gives us hope and so does literature. Manto finds hope in human nature,” said Dr Jalal.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2013.