Letters to Uncle Sam -Saadat Hussain Manto — 1

A series of letters written in the ’50s to a Superpower by a resident of a newly Independent Pakistan

Saadat Hasan Manto was an Indo-Pakistani writer, playwright and author considered among the greatest writers of short stories in South Asian history. Here we reproduce one of his letters to Uncle Sam i.e. the USA by kind permission of the Universal Poetries website.

In 1951, the United States, in a bid to increase its influence in Pakistan after the refusal by Pakistan to send troops to Korea, had begun to find sympathisers in Pakistan’s political, social and literary circles. An air-conditioned USIS (United States Information Service) library was set up on Lahore’s The Mall.

An US official, Mr. Smith, along with a Pakistani USIS staffer, arrived at Manto’s flat one day. Smith requested Manto to write something for the USIS. Manto replied that he was an Urdu writer and did not write in English. Smith said the articles would be published in Urdu. Manto replied he would only write what he wished to write. Smith had no problem with that. On the question of money, Smith said the USIS would pay Rs 500 per piece. Manto refused point-blank, insisting he would take no more than Rs 200. In the end, a compromise was struck at Rs 300.