Experiments in Silence

This book investigates the politics and ethics of silence in the Urdu short fiction published following the Partition of the newly decolonized Indian subcontinent. It concerns itself with the invisible, unspeakable, and the unheard, and ventures to render visible what has been left out of the cultural fold. The volume focuses on the minor genre of the afsana, or short story form, and sketches a distinctive outlook on the Urdu afsana as a literary manifestation and exploration of collective trauma, unspeakability, and the historical memory of Partition. Furthermore, it investigates the condition of muteness/mutedness in the writings of selected Urdu authors. Marshalling a range of critical and theoretical material from European thought and trauma theory, this monograph presents a series of compelling close readings and new translations of selected Urdu short stories by Naiyer Masud, Sa’adat Hasan Manto, and Ismat Chughtai, three of the most prolific Urdu writers from the Indian subcontinent. Experiments in Silence employs a range of postcolonial, disability, and trauma scholarship and theory, drawing on Holocaust studies as well as a wider range of critical theory on memory, abjection, grief, embodiment, and trauma.