FICTION/ NON-FICTION: THE UNFINISHED PREMCHAND.

Novels that remain incomplete owing to the death of their writers, and are published later, are rarities in the Subcontinent, though elsewhere they do mount the printing presses quite frequently.

In some instances - as in the cases of Russian writers Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol - posthumously published works have won their writers accolades.

Here, one can make special mention of Gogol's classic Dead Souls, which came out in 1842. The novel was divided into two parts; the first was acclaimed by critics, but the second half was destroyed by the novelist himself a few days before his death in 1852, when the genius had fallen prey to depression.

A close example in our part of the world happens to be Mangalsutra, which was written by the stalwart of Urdu/ Hindi fiction, Munshi Premchand. He could not proceed beyond four chapters before he passed away on October 8, 1936. He was then merely 56 years old. He could not even revise what he had already penned.

A publication of the incomplete last novel of the giant of Hindi/ Urdu literature tantalises and grips, but leaves the reader frustrated

It was four years later that Mangalsutra was published in Hindi - the language Premchand persisted with in the latter part of his career, though initially he had written in Urdu, which came to him easily because he had studied Arabic and Persian in his boyhood.

The slim volume - published by the Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu, Pakistan - comprises the Urdu translation by Dr Hasan Manzar of Premchand's four chapters, in addition to chapters on the novelist and his personal life written by academician Dr Anwaar Ahmad. The introduction written by Premchand's son, Shripat Rai, is highly informative; in it, Rai claims that Mangalsutra was almost autobiographical.

The foreword, written in her inimitable style by Zahida Hina, is captivating. She maintains that, despite the physical discomfiture he had been experiencing in his twilight days, the novelist did not refrain from practising his love for literature.

Premchand's better half, writer Shivrani Devi, was grief-stricken by Gaodaan [Cow Donation], the classic novel Premchand had authored five months before his death. It portrayed the plight of the poor villagers in Uttar Pradesh (known as the United Provinces until Independence) and the realistic narration pained her intensely.

Premchand told Shivrani that she would feel better if she read, or at least heard, the story of Mangalsutra, but the lady refused to lend...