Click on the image or heading above to access this short story, which is taken directly from our edition of Mottled Dawn. It’s important to use this specific version—the one from the book—rather than any other version you might come across online. Since this is a translated text, other versions may differ in their translation and interpretation.

Manto, as an artist, captures a historic moment through fiction, offering a unique way for the audience to engage with the past compared to official historical records. This difference stems from the creative freedom an artist has to reinterpret and manipulate the past. Consider this: what insights does Manto provide about the Partition experience by using a dog as a symbol—insights that a historian, bound by factual constraints, could not convey?