A beginner's guide to Hindi literature

Hindi literature is about a thousand years old if you count the poets that Hindi literary history claims, and about a century and a half old if you count only prose in modern standard Hindi. Both answers are useful. A new reader can start with Premchand's short stories, which need nothing but everyday Hindi, and work back toward Kabir and Tulsidas once the language feels comfortable.

This guide lays out the traditional eras, explains the dialect question that confuses most beginners, and ends with a first shelf of books. Most of the older titles are public domain in India; the newer ones are not, and we say which is which.

One language, several older dialects

Modern standard Hindi grew out of Khari Boli, the speech of the region around Delhi and Meerut. For most of its history, though, North Indian poetry was written in other dialects. Braj Bhasha, from the country around Mathura and Vrindavan, was the language of Krishna poetry. Awadhi, spoken around Ayodhya and Lucknow, carried the great Ram narrative of Tulsidas. Rajasthani and Maithili have their own classics too.

Hindi literary history folds all of these into one story. So when a syllabus lists Surdas and Premchand side by side, expect a big shift in grammar and vocabulary between them. Reading Surdas without notes is a little like an English speaker reading Chaucer: possible, slow, and much easier with a glossed edition.

The four traditional eras

Ramchandra Shukla's history of Hindi literature (1929) set out the periods that schools still teach. The dates are approximate and argued over, but they give you a map.

Bhaktikal, the devotional centuries

For most readers this is the heart of Hindi poetry. Kabir, a weaver from Varanasi, wrote short dohas that mock ritual and caste and point to a God without form. Surdas sang of Krishna's childhood in Braj. Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi in the 1570s, and it is still recited in homes across North India. Mirabai, a Rajput princess who left court life, wrote songs of love for Krishna. All of this is centuries old and free to read, though modern commentaries and translations have their own copyright.

Ritikal, the court poets

The next two centuries belonged to court poets who wrote polished verse on love and on the rules of poetry itself. Bihari's Satsai, around seven hundred couplets, is the best-known book. It is clever and compressed, and most new readers find it easier to admire than to enjoy at first.

The modern period

Modern Hindi starts in the mid-19th century with Bharatendu Harishchandra of Varanasi, who wrote plays, essays and poetry and edited magazines before he died in 1885 at 34. His farce Andher Nagari is still performed. Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, as editor of the magazine Saraswati from 1903, pushed writers toward correct Khari Boli prose and verse, and Maithili Sharan Gupt's Bharat-Bharati (1912) came out of that push.

Premchand (1880 to 1936) is the central figure of Hindi fiction. He began in Urdu, moved to Hindi, and wrote around three hundred stories and a dozen novels about peasants, clerks, widows and moneylenders. Our Premchand guide suggests an order to read him in.

Chhayavad, the romantic poetry movement of roughly 1918 to 1936, gave Hindi four major poets: Jaishankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', Sumitranandan Pant and Mahadevi Verma. Their language is rich in Sanskrit words. Prasad's Kamayani and Nirala's Ram ki Shakti Puja are its peaks.

After independence came the Nayi Kahani (new story) writers of the 1950s, among them Mohan Rakesh, Kamleshwar and Rajendra Yadav, and novelists such as Phanishwar Nath 'Renu', whose Maila Aanchal (1954) put a Bihar village and its dialect at the center of a novel. Shrilal Shukla's Raag Darbari (1968) is still the funniest novel in the language. These later writers are in copyright, so buy or borrow them.

How to start reading

Start with prose. Premchand's stories are short, his vocabulary is the Hindi of ordinary conversation, and the plots are clear even when you miss a word. Read one story twice: once straight through for the plot, then slowly with a dictionary.

Use bilingual or annotated editions for poetry. Kabir's dohas are short enough to puzzle out, but Surdas and Tulsidas reward a glossed text. Many printed editions put the original and a modern Hindi paraphrase on facing pages.

Read aloud. Hindi poetry was made to be sung or recited, and the meter often tells you how to stress an unfamiliar word. Prose dialogue, especially Premchand's, also makes more sense when you hear it.

Keep a list of words that repeat. A few hundred common literary words (prem, dukh, dharm, kisan, mahajan) cover a surprising share of any older novel.

A first shelf of ten

1. Premchand, Idgah (1933), a short story. Public domain in India.
2. Premchand, Kafan (1936), a short story. Public domain.
3. Premchand, Nirmala (1927), a short novel. Public domain.
4. Bharatendu Harishchandra, Andher Nagari (1881), a one-act play. Public domain.
5. Chandradhar Sharma Guleri, Usne Kaha Tha (1915), a short story. Public domain.
6. Kabir, a small selection of dohas. Centuries old.
7. Premchand, Godaan (1936), when you are ready for a long novel. Public domain.
8. Nirala, Ram ki Shakti Puja (1936), a long poem. Public domain in India since 2022.
9. Dharamvir Bharati, Gunahon ka Devta (1949). In copyright.
10. Shrilal Shukla, Raag Darbari (1968). In copyright.

For the public-domain titles, our guide to free sources explains where volunteers and institutions have put the texts online. Hindi Wikisource and Hindi Samay are the usual starting points. For the rest, a library or bookshop is the honest route. The picker on our homepage can suggest more books by mood and length.