ISLAMABAD, May 25: Short story writers like Manto were a mirror of the society. He touched all those topics which nobody had ever dared to speak, write and hear about and this very quality would keep him alive forever.

This was stated by Chairman National Language Authority (NLA) Dr Anwaar Ahmad, during ‘Manto Seminar’ held here on Friday.

The seminar was organised by the department of Urdu language and literature at the National University of Modern Languages (Numl) to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Saadat Hasan Manto.

He further said: “We also direly needed the writers who are trusted for telling the bitter truth to awake the sleeping conscience of society.”

Dr Anwaar added that Pakistan happened to be very fertile land richly blessed with writers like Gull Khan Naseer, Sheikh Ayaz, Saadat Hasan Manto, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and many others. They were the conscience of Pakistan.

Professor Ahmed Javed, in his research article read on the occasion, highlighted the political insight and the sufferings of the laymen in the pre and post-partition era.

Dr Rawash Nadeem from International Islamic University Islamabad discussed Manto’s style of narrating the plight of women specially the strata that represented sex-workers and said the process of brining out some very high trait of morality and humanity from such debased women left his readers spellbound.

Later Dr Fauzia Aslam from the Numl, in her article, narrated the psychological and technical influence of western norms on Manto.