Premchand is the most famous name in modern Hindi fiction, and Godaan is Premchand's most celebrated novel. It is the story of Hori, a poor peasant who yearns to own a cow and to make the pious Hindu's traditional gift to a Brahmin when he dies. Through Premchand's vivid character portrayals we witness the efforts of Hori's family to survive the conflicts of village politics and the webs spun by colonial landownership patterns. Counterposed to the culture of rural connectedness but also constriction is the isolation but also freedom of the city. Here the rigors of industrialization and empty materialism only can be offset by the promise of Gandhian idealism. An engaging introduction to north India before Independence, Godaan is at once village ethnography, moving human document, and insightful colonial history.

普列姆昌德（1880-1936）是印度現代著名作傢，原名是丹納帕特·萊易。他於1880年7月31日生於印度北方邦貝拿勒斯附近的農村。8歲時母親去世，以後受到繼母虐待。1895年被迫成婚，父親去世後，擔起瞭養傢糊口的重擔。他邊做傢庭教師，邊刻苦地學習。1899年，一次偶然的機會，被一位小學校長聘為教師，開始瞭他的教學生涯。經過艱苦的自學，先後取得師範學院的教書證書，英語，波斯語，曆史的學士學位。1921年起當起專業作傢。1930年辦起《天鵝雜誌》。多年來共寫下中、長篇小說15部，短篇小說300多篇。主要作品有:長篇小說《舞颱》、《戈丹》、《仁愛道院》、《揚帆》、《命途多舛》、《救濟院》、《妮摩拉》、《藍色的岩洞》等等。