PREMCHAND
the complete short stories VOLUME 2Edited with an Introduction by M. AsaduddinTranslated from the Hindi and Urdu by M. Asaduddin and othersForeword by Harish Trivedi
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Foreword by Harish Trivedi
Introduction
1. Premonition
2. The Murder of Honour
3. The Bookbinder
4. Atmaram
5. The Correction
6. The Prime Dharma of Man
7. Black Face
8. Banter
9. The Old Aunt
10. A Father’s Love
11. After Death
12. The Blessed Illness
13. Life Force
14. The Problem
15. A Special Holi
16. The Hidden Hand
17. An Audacious Act
18. The Red Ribbon
19. When Rivals Became Friends
20. A Positive Change
21. A Battle of Ideals
22. A Philosopher’s Love
23. The Bridal Sari
24. Witchcraft
25. Victory of the Defeated
26. Defending One’s Liberty
27. Cobra Worship
28. Turf War
29. Hidden Wealth
30. A Dhobi’s Honour
31. Hoodwinked
32. Reincarnation
33. Test
34. A Loyal Subject
35. End of Enmity
36. The Fool
37. Compulsion
38. A Home for an Orphan
39. Purification
40. Autobiography
41. The Ornaments
42. Revenge
43. Trickery
44. Satyagraha
45. The Roaming Monkey
46. The Prophet’s Justice
47. Sudden Downfall
48. Road to Salvation
49. Money for Deliverance
50. Forgiveness
51. The Lashes of Good Fortune
52. Banishment
53. Despair
54. Ghost
55. By a Whisker!
56. Initiation
57. Rescue
58. The Game of Chess
59. One and a Quarter Ser of Wheat
60. Pleasures of College Life
61. The Malevolent Baby
62. Money for the Decree
63. The Condemned
64. The Path to Hell
65. The Secret of Culture
66. Temple and Mosque
67. Faith
68. Man and Woman
69. A Hired Pony
70. A Mother’s Heart
71. Theft
72. The Goddess from Heaven
73. Punishment
74. The Outcaste
75. Laila
Footnotes
Foreword by Harish Trivedi
Introduction
1. Premonition
4. Atmaram
6. The Prime Dharma of Man
7. Black Face
11. After Death
13. Life Force
15. A Special Holi
20. A Positive Change
44. Satyagraha
54. Ghost
58. The Game of Chess
Notes
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Note on Translators
Popular Editions
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKSTHE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES: VOLUME 2
Premchand (1880–1936), considered one of the greatest fiction writers in Hindi, was born Dhanpat Rai in Lamahi, a small village near Benares. He wrote in Urdu under the name Nawab Rai and changed it to Premchand when his collection of short stories, Soz-e Watan, was seized for sedition in 1909. In a prolific career spanning three decades, Premchand wrote fourteen novels, two plays, almost 300 short stories and several articles, reviews and editorials. He edited four journals, and also set up his own printing press. Though best known for his stories exposing the horrors of poverty and social injustice, he wrote on a variety of themes with equal felicity—romance, satire, social dramas, nationalist tales, and yarns steeped in folklore.
M. Asaduddin is an author, critic and translator in several languages. His books include Premchand in World Languages: Translation, Reception and Cinematic Representations; Filming Fiction: Tagore, Premchand and Ray; A Life in Words; The Penguin Book of Classic Urdu Stories; Lifting the Veil: Selected Writings of Ismat Chughtai; For Freedom’s Sake: Manto; and (with Mushirul Hasan) Image and Representation: Stories of Muslim Lives in India. He has been a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, and a Charles Wallace Trust Fellow at the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. He is a regular speaker at literary festivals, and his translations have been recognized with the Sahitya Akademi Award, and the Katha and A.K. Ramanujan awards for translation, as well as the Crossword Book Award.
Advance Praise for the Volumes
‘Not having access to all of Premchand’s stories has always been a cause of frustration to his readers. The publication now of the entire, admittedly huge, corpus of his short stories is very welcome. Premchand—in spite of occasional challenges—remains a true colossus of Indian literature. The sheer variety, with its hypnotic power, and the vastness of his output is staggering. It is impossible to arrive at any kind of assessment of modern Indian literature without taking full account of Premchand. Then, his fiction as a living source and commentary on the social, political and rural India of the early part of the twentieth century is valuable and relevant even today. These four volumes deserve a place on the bookshelf of every lover of modern fiction, in India or elsewhere’
SHAMSUR RAHMAN FARUQI
well-known critic, poet and novelist in Urdu
‘Premchand’s fiction draws from his vast experience of the conflicts of village life, of caste tensions, of excessive revenue demands and the never-ending chain of debts entailed by these. If these are grim tales, they are both deepened and lightened by his psychological insight, his irony and humour, and the broad canvas on which they are drawn, which links country and city in a manner unknown in Hindi–Urdu fiction writing before him. To present this rich corpus, drawn exhaustively from both Urdu and Hindi originals, the vast majority made available in English for the first time, is a pioneering feat for which the translators are to be congratulated’
VASUDHA DALMIA
professor emerita of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
‘At once an extraordinary feat of scholarship and an immense labour of love, this collection gives us the complete corpus of Premchand’s short stories in English translation for the first time. It thus allows readers without access to either or both of Premchand’s languages of composition, Urdu and Hindi, insight into one of the greatest writers of India’s modernity—indeed, into the making of modern India. Most importantly, as the rich and informative Introduction to this translation states, the stories bear witness to Premchand’s “secular and inclusive” view of the Indian nation. Premchand’s socialism, his realism, his role in the fashioning of a modern prose style in two languages, his searing insights into caste and gender politics, his sympathy for the oppressed, for the labouring poor, even for working animals, make him a writer from whom we still have much to learn. If this remarkable collaborative enterprise brilliantly led by M. Asaduddin helps us to do so, its purpose will be served’
SUPRIYA CHAUDHURI
professor emerita, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
‘It is a valuable work, especially for foreign readers who cannot read the original text in Hindi or Urdu. This complete translation of Premchand’s short stories must be welcomed as a major contribution to the accessibility
