Revisiting Manto, Recovering Histories: Partition Violence and the Little People

Conference: The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities (ACAH2022)
Title: Revisiting Manto, Recovering Histories: Partition Violence and the Little People
Stream: History/Historiography
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Sameera Chauhan, Panjab University, India

Abstract:

This article explores the complexity which imbues Saadat Hasan Manto’s post-partition short stories. In the face of glaring silences and screaming voids that pervade official historiography of the event, literature and oral histories have both emerged as formidable archives. They tip the balance in favour of partition historiography which bares the horrors of murder, abduction, rape, and displacement; moving away from statist narratives which relegate the pain and agonies of people, especially women, to the background. This article will examine the role of Manto’s complex, imaginative and Kafkaesque literary works in recovering the trials of the marginalised and the voiceless, by reading them along with, and in the light of, Oral testimonies.

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