Indian social realism

In 1936, in Lucknow, the Progressive Writers' Association set itself the task of bringing peasant poverty, untouchability and the condition of women into Indian literature. Premchand tells of a peasant who runs into fatal debt to bring a cow home, Mulk Raj Anand follows one day of a sweeper, Manto writes the brothels and the massacres of Partition, Ismat Chughtai was taken to court over a story about desire between women. These books, written in Hindi, Urdu and English, caused scandal and became school reading.

works 5

• NovelUntouchableMulk Raj Anand · 1935A whole day in the life of an untouchable sweeper, from dawn to evening, in the colonial India of the thirties.Literature
• NovelThe Gift of a CowगोदानMunshi Premchand · 1936Peasant debt and the dream of owning a cow, in the colonial countryside under the rule of the great landowners.Literature
• Short storiesآتش پارےSaadat Hasan Manto · 1936not translated into EnglishThe first collection of a short-story writer in Urdu, whose first story returns to the Amritsar of 1919.Literature
• Short storiesThe QuiltلحافIsmat Chughtai · 1942A short story of a few pages, told by a child who does not understand what she sees, in the closed house of a neglected begum.Literature
• NovelTraitorغدارKrishan Chander · 1960An account of the partition of the Punjab, told by a Hindu driven from his home whom each side ends up regarding as a traitor.Literature