Dhanpat Rai Srivastava or Munshi Premchand as he was better known was born on July 31, 1880 in Lamahi near Varanasi. He ranks as one of the tallest icons in the field of modern Hindi and Urdu literature. Both his parents passed away early when he was still young. He had to face tremendous struggles to make his ends meet. In 1910, the District Magistrate in Jamirpur reprimanded him for his collection of short stories Soz-e-Watan, which was termed as seditious. Hereafter, he began to write under the pen name "Premchand" .
He wrote in Urdu too under the name of Nawabrai. Credited with introducing realism to the world of Hindi literature, he responded to Mahatma Gandhi's call in 1921 and resigned from government service. For a brief period, he worked as a scriptwriter for Bollywood movies. On the personal front, he married twice. He used to write in the language of the common people and is credited with introducing issues like communalism, corruption, poverty and colonialism into Hindi and Urdu literature.
He lived a life of penury. Many of his works were later made into movies and television serials. The legendary Satyajit Ray made two movies based on Premchand's works - Sadgati and Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Premchand also wrote some plays. His works have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. He passed away on October 8, 1936.
Get to know about some more Indian Writers and Poets :
Raja Rao
Amitav Ghosh
Mulk Raj Anand
Vikram Chandra
R.K. Narayan
Jhumpa Lahiri
Arundhati Roy
Salman Rushdie
Kiran Desai
Vikram Seth
V.S. Naipaul
Khushwant Singh
Munshi Premchand
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
Mahadevi Verma
