About Godan
Godan — meaning The Gift of a Cow — is Munshi Premchand's final and greatest novel, widely considered the crowning achievement of Hindi literature. Hori, a simple peasant farmer, dreams of owning a cow — a symbol of status, religious merit and economic security. This simple dream becomes his life's consuming passion and, ultimately, his destruction, as debt, exploitative landlords and corrupt officials close in around him.
Premchand weaves together multiple storylines — urban and rural, rich and poor — to create an epic portrait of India at the crossroads of tradition and modernity in the 1930s. Godan is a protest novel and a love story, a political document and a work of profound human compassion. It was Premchand's last completed novel before his death in 1936, and it is his masterpiece.
Listen free to Godan by Munshi Premchand — the greatest Hindi novel ever written, read in the original Hindi language.