DefinePK

Abstract

This paper studies Manto’s fiction as historiographic metafiction that de-doxifies the representation in the official narratives of Indo-Pak history. Manto enjoys a significant position in Urdu Literature due to his bold and iconoclastic writings, especially about partition. His relevance has grown enormously in recent times when the candors of historio-political grand narratives have been problematized. His art of characterization and storytelling explores various angles of human nature during the havocs of partition. The self-reflexivity of the acts and the position of the events in his historical works have questioned the naturalized historical discourse of this region. Linda Hutcheon’s The Politics of Postmodernism is used as the seminal text for developing a theoretical framework for this paper concentrating on the concept of de-doxified representation of history through historiographic metafiction. The paper concludes that Manto’s Afsanas have presented the de-doxified history which neither supports Pakistani nor Indian doxa of history rather he has represented history from an unbiased artistic perspective which reveals the huge impact that partition had over human beings regardless of their religion, caste and creed.