Saadat Hasan Manto was born on 11 May 1912 at Samrala in Punjab's Ludhiana district. Manto worked for All India Radio during World War II and was a successful screen writer in Bombay before moving to Pakistan during Partition. He wrote over a dozen films, including Eight Days, Chal Chal Re Naujawan and Mirza Ghalib. The last one was shot after Manto moved to Pakistan in January 1948.

Manto was tried for obscenity half-a-dozen times, thrice before and thrice after independence. Two of his greatest stories - Colder than Ice and The Return - were among works considered 'obscene' by the Pakistani censors.

Manto's Toba Tek Singh, considered his greatest work by many, was produced in the last seven years of his life, a time of great financial and emotional hardship for him. His controversial career in literary, journalistic, radio scripting and film-writing spread over more than two decades in which he published twenty-two collections of stories, seven collections of radio plays, three collections of essays, and a novel. He died several months short of his 43rd birthday in January 1955 in Lahore.