THE POLITICS OF TRANSLATION 3 7 fact that he is neither a moralist nor an ideologue, neither a sermoniser nor a nationalist. Like a good fiction writer, he refuses to turn his gaze away from what he sees, even though he is bewildered and shocked by the pain human beings, in their frenzy of small claims and neurotic resentments, are willing to inflict on each other. The best of his partition stories surprise one by bringing together, in darkly illuminating moments of existential understanding, terrible violence and the beauty of the human yearning for sex, children, home and community which refuses to yield its instinctual energy to the deathtraps religious fanaticism and extremist politics lay for us. It is, therefore, important to translate his stories with care in order to reveal how they are constructed out of a complex variety of strong voices — voices of protest and anguish, mockery and nostalgia, mourning and longing — voices which clash against each other and jostle for a hearing. Khalid Hasan's translation, unfortunately, is much too weak and sentimental, partisan and censorious to show us why Manto is the kind of witness whose work may help us understand our shattered past. NOTES 1. New Delhi : Penguin, 1997. Hereafter, all references to this volume are included in the text. While Hasan's translations have been praised, the reasons for approval are curious. There are two cliches that are generally used about these translations. The first says that the translations are "idiomatic English," and the second, that it captures the "flavour" of the original. No reviewer, however, bothers to explain what is so worthy about "idiomatic English," or what precisely it is. Nor does any reviewer ever pause to wonder whether the task of "capturing" flavours shouldn't be left to cooks and writers on culinary matters - that translators have a different kind of work to do. 2. Twelve of the stories included in these editions are taken from earlier volume edited by Hasan. See Kingdom's End and other Stones. London : Verso, 1987. 3. For a detailed analysis of the story see my article, "A Dance of Grotesque Masks : A critical reading ofManto's ^1919 Ke Ek Baat,5" Life and Works of Saadat Hasan Manto, ed by Alok Bhalla. Shimla : Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1997 pp. 28-54. See also my translation of the story in Kunapipi vol. 13, no. 3, 1997, pp. 16-21. 4. Many of these aspects of Hasan's translation have also been listed by M. Asadudin in an article published in Life and Works of Sadaat Hasan Manto, ed. Alok Bhalla, pp. 159-171. 5. All references to Manto's writings are from Dastavez^ ed. by Balraj Manra and Sharad Dutt. New Delhi : Rajkamal. 1993, 5 volumes. Hereafter,