THE GREATEST URDU STORIES EVER TOLD

Selected and translated by
writer, editor and translator par excellence Muhammad Umar Memon, the
twenty-five stories in this book represent the finest short fiction in Urdu
literature.In his Introduction, Memon traces the evolution of the Urdu short
story from its origins in the work of writers like Munshi Premchand??the
first professional short story writer in Urdu??through the emergence of the
Progressivesin the late 1930s, whose writings were unabashedly political and
underpinned their Marxist ideologies, to the post-Independence ?Modernist?
era, and today?s generation of avant-garde, experimental writers of Urdu
fiction.Every story in the anthology illustrates one or the other facet of
the form in the Urdu literary tradition. But even more than for their formal
technique and inventiveness, these stories have been included because of
their power and impact on the reader. Death and poverty face off in
Premchand?s masterpiece ?The Shroud?. In Khalida Asghar?s ?The Wagon?, a
mysterious redness begins to cloak the sunset in a village by the Ravi.
Behind closed doors and cracks in the windows lies desire but also ?a sense
of queer foreboding? in Naiyer Masud?s ?Obscure Domains of Fear and Desire’.
The tragedy and horror of Partition are brought to life by Saadat Hasan
Manto?s lunatic (in ?Toba Tek Singh?) and the eponymous heroine of Rajinder
Singh Bedi?s ?Laajwanti?. Despairing, violent, passionate, humorous, ironic
and profound?the fiction in The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told will imprint
itself indelibly on your mind.