Between 1951 and 1954, the great Indo-Pakistani writer Sadat Hasan Manto wrote a series of nine comic letters addressed to Uncle Sam, none of which were mailed, he said, because he could not afford the postage. Three of those letters, translated from Urdu into English, can be read at these links:
Just finished Manto's first letter. It's difficult to believe, in this Twittering world, people like Manto actually lived and worked. I don't know how his letters would sound in Urdu but even in translation, the raw power of his persona and talent come through. I am even more curious how he would have reacted to writers not writing in their native tongue but in English, e.g. Naipaul or yourself? If you two ever meet, what would you talk about?
Just finished Manto's first letter. It's difficult to believe, in this Twittering world, people like Manto actually lived and worked. I don't know how his letters would sound in Urdu but even in translation, the raw power of his persona and talent come through. I am even more curious how he would have reacted to writers not writing in their native tongue but in English, e.g. Naipaul or yourself? If you two ever meet, what would you talk about?