Saadat Hasan Manto wrote more than twenty collections of short stories, five radio dramas, three essay collections, one novel, and a handful of film scripts. A Muslim living in Bombay at the time of the India-Pakistan Partition, Manto was forced to migrate with his family to Lahore, where he wrote his most wrenching Partition stories. When asked why he sought to humanize the grit of Bombay and the upheaval of Partition, Manto retorted, "If you cannot bear my stories, it is because we live in unbearable times."

Born in Kashmir, journalist, author, and translator Khalid Hasan is best remembered for his translations of the poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Saadat Hasan Manto's short fiction.

Muhammad Umar Memon was a critic, short story writer, and translator. He edited The Annual of Urdu Studies at the University of Wisconsin.