Showing Books By Author : Munshi Premchand

Ways Of Dying Stories And Essays

One of the meanings of the word ‘olio’ is ‘a miscellany’. The books in the Aleph Olio series contain a mélange of the best writing to be had on a variety of themes, and present aspects of India and Indian life in ways that have seldom been seen before. Ways of Dying comprises stories and essays of deep insight into an inevitable part of life—death. The pieces in the book include Amitav Ghosh on the assassination of Indira Gandhi and its aftermath, Ruskin Bond on memories of his father’s funeral, Amitava Kumar on how it is necessary to find comfort and solace in the midst of profound grief, Mahasweta Devi on murder and revenge in rural India, and Atul Gawande on assisted suicide and what doctors fear the most when faced with the mortality of their patients. Elsewhere in the anthology, the reader will find one of Munshi Premchand’s greatest stories, ‘The Shroud’, a peerless meditation on the hypocrisies and feigned grief of dysfunctional families on the death of a family member, balanced by Khushwant Singh’s poignant essay on the death of his beloved grandmother. Rounding out the selection are George Orwell on the complex reasons that often lead to innocent blood being shed, David Davidar on the sadness and turmoil that whirls through a family upon the death of a patriarch, and Kolakaluri Enoch on the tragic death of a young girl.

Nirmala. (निर्मला)

Kaljayee Katha (कालजयी कथा)

Godan

The Temple And The Mosque

Premchand's fiction has been translated before, but seldom did these translations reveal the many facets of his literary genius, nor did they show the wide variety of 'types' he was capable of portraying. For, Premchand wrote not only about villains and martyrs, poverty, rigid social order or caste disparities. His world, seemingly black and white though it is, is also lit by flashes of wit and humour, gentle irony and a persistent social commentary. While Premchand's favourite characters – bhang-drinking pandits, miserable sweepers and arrogant Thakurs – do feature in this collection, this is perhaps the first time that the English reader will be introduced to his 'other' world – a world of unbelievably good men, lovesick young girls, and a penniless braggart's self-delusion. About the Author Premchand (1880–1936) is regarded as among the finest of writers in Hindi and Urdu. His first collection of stories, Soz-e-Watan (1908), was banned for being incendiary and seditious. Undaunted, he kept writing stories that expressed the pain and suffering of the toiling masses. Some of his best writings portray the influence of Gandhi and the Russian revolution in his choice of subjects: widow remarriage, dowry, untouchability, the rich–poor divide, the problems of landless labour, and the inequalities of the caste system. br>Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and editor. Her debut collection of short stories Release and Other Stories was published by HarperCollins in August 2011