Munshi Premchand

Biography

He is one of the greatest Hindi writers. His stories give the correct picture of village realities. He used his stories to great effect for social reforms. He married a child widow Shivarani Devi when widow marriages were considered a sin in Indian society. 

He also wrote various novels voicing for these social reforms. Early in his career, he took up a government job as a school teacher to support his family. But in 1921 he resigned from the job to take up Gandhi's call. 

He contributed to the freedom movement through his writings. He changed his pen name to "Premchand" after his book Soje Vathan was banned by the then-British government, which burned all the copies. 

In his writings, the characters are always the ordinary people. When asked why he doesn't write anything about himself, he answered: "What greatness do I have that I have to tell anyone about? I live just like millions of people in this country; I am ordinary. 

My life is also ordinary. I am a poor school teacher suffering from family travails. During my whole lifetime, I have been grinding away with the hope that I could become free of my sufferings. 

But I have not been able to free myself from suffering. What is so special about this life that needs to be told to anybody?". This is the greatness of the man.

Worked with film director Himanshu Rai of Bombay Talkies; one of the founders of Bollywood.

Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand, was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. 

He was one of the first authors to write about caste hierarchies and the plights of women and laborers prevalent in the society of the late 1880s. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindi writers of the early twentieth century. 

His works include Godaan, Karmabhoomi, Gaban, Mansarovar, and Idgah. He published his first collection of five short stories in 1907 in a book called Soz-e-Watan (Voice of the Nation).

He began writing under the pen name "Nawab Rai", but subsequently switched to "Premchand". A novel writer, story writer, and dramatist, he has been referred to as the "Upanyas Samrat" (Emperor Among Novelists) by Hindi writers. 

His works include more than a dozen novels, around 300 short stories, several essays, and translations of a number of foreign literary works into Hindi.

Rekhta's preservation initiative has archived Premchand's literary work which constitutes 278 e-books, 63 short stories, 13 articles, and 31 quotes.