About the Book: In The Pity of Partition, historian Ayesha Jalal explores the human impact of the Partition of India through the life and writings of renowned Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Drawing on Manto’s stories, essays, sketches and personal letters, Jalal examines Partition, communal conflict, migration, identity, nationalism and postcolonial South Asia. Combining literary analysis with historical research, the book offers a deeply personal perspective on the violence and social upheaval surrounding 1947, while exploring the changing worlds of Bombay and Lahore.