Saadat Hasan Manto is one of the foremost writers of the Indian subcontinent in Urdu, and, by common consent, the most accomplished practitioner of the short story form in South Asia. He wrote short stories, sketches, portraits, essays, screen plays, seven collections of radio plays, and a novel.

Born into a typical middle-class Muslim family of Samrala, Punjab, to a conservative, domineering father and a gentle mother, he showed no interest in studies at school. Luckily he chanced upon a mentor, Abdul Bari Alig, a dilettante writer and journalist, who introduced him to English, Russian, and French writers—Oscar Wilde, Chekhov, Pushkin, Maupassant, Victor Hugo, and others.