The god Shiva is utterly seduced by Mohini, the enchanting female form assumed by the god Vishnu during the churning of the ocean for nectar. A barber employs wit and wile and rumours of witchcraft to win his wife back from the lustful attentions of their king. The celestial nymph Urvashi curses the Pandava prince Arjuna when he rejects her sexual advances. A woman caught in adultery befools her elders with a religious ritual. A man with a disagreeable missing wife insists nevertheless that she be recovered by his ruler who has a similar problem.
Refined, colloquial, romantic, cynical, satirical by turns, these stories of erotic love, elegantly translated from the Sanskrit classics, make a sustained argument for the secular ends of life of desire tempered with discrimination and pleasure with restraint.
Ha Ha Hu Hu tells the delightful tale of an extraordinary horse-headed creature that mysteriously appears in London one fine morning, causing considerable excitement and consternation among the city’s denizens. Dressed in silks and jewels, it has the head of a horse but the body of a human and speaks in an unknown tongue. What is it? And more importantly, why is it here?
In the hilarious satire Vishnu Sharma Learns English, a Telugu lecturer is visited in a dream by the medieval poet Tikanna and the ancient scholar Vishnu Sharma with an unusual request: they want him to teach them English!
Velcheru Narayana Rao’s elegant translation is accompanied by an erudite introduction and afterword which illuminate the fascinating life and works of Viswanadha Satyanarayana.
‘Premchand is India. If you haven’t read Premchand, you have missed out on a lot’ The Hindu
Munshi Premchand, widely lauded as the greatest Hindi fiction writer of the twentieth century, wrote close to 300 short stories over the course of a prolific career spanning three decades. His range and diversity were limitless as he tackled themes of romance and satire, gender politics and social inequality, with unmatched skill and compassion. By turns poignant, acerbic, comical and tragic, many of his stories powerfully invoke the countryside-its pastoral simplicity as well as its harsh realities-while others capture the hopes and anxieties that accompany life in a teeming city where the underdog and the exploiter are caught in an age-old conflict.
For the first time ever, Penguin Classics brings together Premchand’s entire short-fiction oeuvre for the delight of the English-speaking world. Along with M. Asaduddin’s illuminating Introduction, this pathbreaking anthology
features several stories not hitherto available either in Hindi or Urdu. Also included are comprehensive notes that provide the publication history of each story-highlighting the differences, sometimes significant and radical, between the Hindi and the Urdu versions of the same story-as well as a definitive chronology, making this a truly singular collection.
TRANSLATED BY M. ASADUDDIN AND OTHERS
‘Premchand is India. If you haven’t read Premchand, you have missed out on a lot’ The Hindu
Munshi Premchand, widely lauded as the greatest Hindi fiction writer of the twentieth century, wrote close to 300 short stories over the course of a prolific career spanning three decades. His range and diversity were limitless as he tackled themes of romance and satire, gender politics and social inequality, with unmatched skill and compassion. By turns poignant, acerbic, comical and tragic, many of his stories powerfully invoke the countryside-its pastoral simplicity as well as its harsh realities-while others capture the hopes and anxieties that accompany life in a teeming city where the underdog and the exploiter are caught in an age-old conflict.
For the first time ever, Penguin Classics brings together Premchand’s entire short-fiction oeuvre for the delight of the English-speaking world. Along with M. Asaduddin’s illuminating Introduction, this pathbreaking anthology
features several stories not hitherto available either in Hindi or Urdu. Also included are comprehensive notes that provide the publication history of each story-highlighting the differences, sometimes significant and radical, between the Hindi and the Urdu versions of the same story-as well as a definitive chronology, making this a truly singular collection.
TRANSLATED BY M. ASADUDDIN AND OTHERS
‘Premchand is India. If you haven’t read Premchand, you have missed out on a lot’ The Hindu
Munshi Premchand, widely lauded as the greatest Hindi fiction writer of the twentieth century, wrote close to 300 short stories over the course of a prolific career spanning three decades. His range and diversity were limitless as he tackled themes of romance and satire, gender politics and social inequality, with unmatched skill and compassion. By turns poignant, acerbic, comical and tragic, many of his stories powerfully invoke the countryside-its pastoral simplicity as well as its harsh realities-while others capture the hopes and anxieties that accompany life in a teeming city where the underdog and the exploiter are caught in an age-old conflict.
For the first time ever, Penguin Classics brings together Premchand’s entire short-fiction oeuvre for the delight of the English-speaking world. Along with M. Asaduddin’s illuminating Introduction, this pathbreaking anthology
features several stories not hitherto available either in Hindi or Urdu. Also included are comprehensive notes that provide the publication history of each story-highlighting the differences, sometimes significant and radical, between the Hindi and the Urdu versions of the same story-as well as a definitive chronology, making this a truly singular collection.
TRANSLATED BY M. ASADUDDIN AND OTHERS
‘Premchand is India. If you haven’t read Premchand, you have missed out on a lot’ The Hindu
Munshi Premchand, widely lauded as the greatest Hindi fiction writer of the twentieth century, wrote close to 300 short stories over the course of a prolific career spanning three decades. His range and diversity were limitless as he tackled themes of romance and satire, gender politics and social inequality, with unmatched skill and compassion. By turns poignant, acerbic, comical and tragic, many of his stories powerfully invoke the countryside-its pastoral simplicity as well as its harsh realities-while others capture the hopes and anxieties that accompany life in a teeming city where the underdog and the exploiter are caught in an age-old conflict.
For the first time ever, Penguin Classics brings together Premchand’s entire short-fiction oeuvre for the delight of the English-speaking world. Along with M. Asaduddin’s illuminating Introduction, this pathbreaking anthology
features several stories not hitherto available either in Hindi or Urdu. Also included are comprehensive notes that provide the publication history of each story-highlighting the differences, sometimes significant and radical, between the Hindi and the Urdu versions of the same story-as well as a definitive chronology, making this a truly singular collection.
TRANSLATED BY M. ASADUDDIN AND OTHERS
The Valmiki Ramayana remains a living force in the lives of the Indian people. A timeless epic, it recounts the legend of the noble prince Rama and his battle to vanquish the demon king Ravana.
Even before he is crowned king of Ayodhya, Rama is exiled to the Dandaka forests where he is accompanied by his beauteous wife Sita and loyal brother Lakshmana. Deep in the jungle, Sita is abducted by Ravana and taken to his island kingdom Lanka, setting into motion a dramatic chain of events that culminates in an epoch-defining war. Filled with adventure and spectacle, the Ramayana is also the poignant story of a family caught up in the conflict between personal duty and individual desires.
In Bibek Debroy’s majestic new translation, the complete and unabridged text of the Critical Edition of this beloved epic can now be relished by a new generation of readers.
The Valmiki Ramayana remains a living force in the lives of the Indian people. A timeless epic, it recounts the legend of the noble prince Rama and his battle to vanquish the demon king Ravana.
Even before he is crowned king of Ayodhya, Rama is exiled to the Dandaka forests where he is accompanied by his beauteous wife Sita and loyal brother Lakshmana. Deep in the jungle, Sita is abducted by Ravana and taken to his island kingdom Lanka, setting into motion a dramatic chain of events that culminates in an epoch-defining war. Filled with adventure and spectacle, the Ramayana is also the poignant story of a family caught up in the conflict between personal duty and individual desires.
In Bibek Debroy’s majestic new translation, the complete and unabridged text of the Critical Edition of this beloved epic can now be relished by a new generation of readers.
The Valmiki Ramayana remains a living force in the lives of the Indian people. A timeless epic, it recounts the legend of the noble prince Rama and his battle to vanquish the demon king Ravana.
Even before he is crowned king of Ayodhya, Rama is exiled to the Dandaka forests where he is accompanied by his beauteous wife Sita and loyal brother Lakshmana. Deep in the jungle, Sita is abducted by Ravana and taken to his island kingdom Lanka, setting into motion a dramatic chain of events that culminates in an epoch-defining war. Filled with adventure and spectacle, the Ramayana is also the poignant story of a family caught up in the conflict between personal duty and individual desires.
In Bibek Debroy’s majestic new translation, the complete and unabridged text of the Critical Edition of this beloved epic can now be relished by a new generation of readers.
On the night before he is to be hanged as a political prisoner, Shekhar finds himself drawn into a vortex of scattered memories–flashes of childhood angst and youthful love amidst days of high idealism and constant struggle against the British Raj. Enveloped by his past and wracked by a tumult of emotions, he muses on the philosophical questions that have consumed him and the ideological fervour that has led him to his inevitable fate. And as the appointed hour approaches, he must reconcile himself with who he has become and what he truly stands for.
Regarded as one of the most influential Hindi novels of all time, Shekhar powerfully reimagines the journey of an outspoken young underground revolutionary in pre-Independence India. This sparkling new translation brings to life the psychological acuity and literary richness of Agyeya’s most profound work.
