Bombay Stories

Bombay Stories is a collection of Manto’s work from his years in the city. Freshly arrived in 1930s Bombay, Manto saw a city like no other—an exhilarating hub of license and liberty, and a city bursting with both creative energy and helpless despondency. It was to be Manto’s favourite city, and he was among the first to write the Bombay characters we are now familiar with from countless stories and films—prostitutes, pimps, lowlifes, writers, intellectuals, aspiring film actors, thugs, conmen and crooks. His hard-edged, moving stories remain, a hundred years after his birth, startling and provocative. Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad’s translations reach into the streets and capture Manto’s voice in contemporary, idiomatic English. ...