Premchand’s World

Premchand occupies a unique position in Indian literature. He shaped the genre of fiction in two language literatures, i.e., Urdu and Hindi, by giving it a realistic base, diverting it of its preoccupation with the world of fantasy and romance. It is a common misconception that he began writing in Urdu and, then, for various reasons, switched over to Hindi exclusively as the language of his choice. The truth of the matter is that though he found out early in his career that his books published in Hindi sold much more than in Urdu and his Hindi publishers were more generous with funds than those in Urdu, he continued to write in both the languages till the end of his life. To corroborate this view one may adduce the case of ‘Kafan’ which is regarded as his last short story (or at least, the last substantial short story) which was originally written in Urdu. However, this issue of Urdu Premchand vs. Hindi Premchand is immensely complex, and has multiple ramifications that defy easy resolution. He wrote his works—novels, short stories, non-fiction—either in Urdu or Hindi. If he wrote originally in Urdu then the Hindi version was prepared almost immediately, either by him or by someone else.

Then both the versions would be sent for publication. The timing of the publication would, of course, depend on the alacrity or the lackadaisical attitude of the publisher. The publication date of a work does not always accurately represent the date of original composition and language, i.e., Urdu or Hindi.

Premchand has a huge corpus of short stories but no definitive edition of this corpus has yet been published. For some time the general impression both in Hindi and Urdu circles was that Premchand’s complete short stories have been put together in Hindi in the series known as Mansarovar (from which Ruth Vanita selects her stories for the current volume,