Premchand is the pen name of Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, the Indian writer also known as Munshi Premchand, who died in 1936. He was a pioneer of social fiction in Hindi and Urdu, one of the first to write about caste hierarchies and the lives of women and labourers. Among his books are Godaan, Gaban, Karmabhoomi, Nirmala, Mansarovar and Idgah.
