11 May is Saadat Hasan Manto’s birthday. He is remembered for his short fiction, his commentaries, his journalistic pieces including those on filmmakers and much more. He is one of the few writers who is associated with subcontinent writing about the social, cultural and political milieu. There is no doubt he was a deeply political writer who had a fraught relationship with the Progressive Writer’s Association. Decades after his death he continues to be read, translated and discussed with passion. It has something to do with the crisp, clear, straight-from-the-heart manner of writing. Apparently he wrote furiously and in large quantities.

In recent years much of his body of work has been made available in English — jottings on cinema and actors, on Bombay, short fiction etc. Take for instance the Hindi website, thelallantop.com, celebrating a month of  Manto (  http://www.thelallantop.com/tehkhana/saadat-hasan-manto-best-stories-in-hindi-thanda-gosht/ ) and Rajkamal Prakashan Group, a highly respected Hindi publishing firm has collaborated with an FM radio channel and has RJ Sayema reading out stories every Friday night. Leftword recently brought out an incredible collection of Manto’s essays — Saadat Hasan Manto: The Armchair Revolutionary and Other Sketches which has an introduction by Nandita Das. ( http://bit.ly/23H6IsQ ). Penguin Random House, India has for some time been publishing a lot of Manto books. Some of these are:

11 May 2016