MANTO: STORIES; Well Known, Less Known, Ill Known

Description

After Manto My Love, which was the English translation of selected writings of Saadat Hasan Manto, Manto: Stories- Well Known, Less Known, Ill Known – is his second book of translation of Manto’s writings that focuses exclusively on his stories. Harish Narang has divided the texts into three sections – stories that are well known, stories that are less known and stories that are ill known. The last section includes those stories which were condemned as obscene writing and court cases were slapped against him. Most of them are also familiar to readers and could have also gone into the first section.

Since every translation of a literary discourse is also a new interpretation, the translations of these stories carry the stamp of a new point of view by the translator. For instance, Khol Do has been given a unique interpretation by Harish Narang which is also evident from the title – ” My Daughter is Alive”.

In the Introduction to the volume, the translator offers his justification for including each story thereby underlying their significance in the oeuvre of Manto. In an essay – Manto: An Evaluation” – appended at the end, Professor Narang offers his assessment of Manto as a major writer of not only the Indian subcontinent but of the world of literature globally. The translator says, though he is eighty, he is still not finished with translating Manto and ‘threatens’ to come out with another volume in course of time.

Born in Sargodha, West Pakistan in 1943 in United India and brought up and educated in Delhi, Harish Narang, is a former Professor and Chairperson at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is a reputed writer, translator and a scholar of literature and culture studies. He writes both in English and Hindi and translates from and into both languages. He has published two collections of stories – Pakistani Bachha and Sunte the Sahar Hogi. His collection of stories in English is due to be published shortly. Among his well known translations are Qatil Ka Geet, Hindi translation of M.G. Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song, Janata ka Admi, Hindi translation of Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People, Is Sadi ki Prem Kahani, English translation of Surya Kant Tripathi Nirala’s novella of the same name. His compendium to Manto’s writings – Manto My Love – was published by the Sahitya Akademi and has gone into the fourth print. He is an amateur photographer and a keen gardener.