Premchand's English drafts on display in City of Lakes

By Staff
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Bhopal, Feb 18 (UNI) It might come as a surprise to literature addicts that legendary author Munshi Premchand prepared English drafts of his creations before translating and expanding them into either Hindi or Urdu.

Several such drafts are part of a week-long exhibition on the author's personality and works at the Bharat Bhavan in the City of Lakes as part of the multi-art centre's silver jubilee celebrations.

Descriptions of his bank accounts reveal that Premchand's last days were not spent in penury.

''He possessed fine knowledge of the English language, besides Hindi and Urdu. Premchand's thought process used English. Even his famous work 'Godan' was first drafted in English and that draft is among the exhibits,'' the event's convenor and critic Kamal Kishore Goenka told UNI.

Goenka, who has set up a Premchand Museum in Delhi, has even found the English draft of a novel that Premchand could not complete. 'Rangbhumi' and 'Kayakalp' were also similarly drafted and the author's diary is penned in English.

An interesting exhibit is Acharya Narendra Dev's letter to Premchand urging the latter to translate into Hindi India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's 'Letters from a Father to a Daughter'. Premchand honoured the request.

''Premchand was studying for an MA in English Literature but unavoidable reasons prevented him from completing the course. He had secured a second-class BA degree in English Literature, Persian and History from the Allahabad University. During his intermediate days, Premchand studied English Literature as a subject,'' says Goenka who has taught at Delhi University and completed his PhD on Premchand in 1972.

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