India, June 13 -- Though it evokes revulsion, depictions of violence also occasionally convey moral decay and force you to confront the existence of unthinkable realities. Urdu short story writer Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955), who saw it as an elemental instinct that can serve as a vehicle for existential revelation, understood the potential of violence to reflect the innate wickedness of humankind.

His unsettling writings, wrapped in savage irony, now brighten the intellectual landscape of the Anglophone literary sensibility as well. Manto's graphic literary response to the catastrophe of the Partition that left over two million dead and displaced 10 million has cemented his stature. His harrowing writing about communal strife, politic...