The Gift of a Cow, Premchand. Translated by Gordon C. Roadarmel. With a New Introduction by Vasudha Dalmia. Indiana University Press, 2002
Roadarmel was a prioneer in introducing modern Hindi literature to the Western world He wrote critical articles and translated the work of major figures of Hindi literature, such as Premchand, Jainendra Kumar, S.H. Vatsayan 'Ajneya', and Mohan Rakesh. these articles, reviews, and translations appeared widely in leading Indian and American journals. He worked closely with 'Ajneya' himself a leading figure in the world of Hindi letters in post-independence India, in the translation not only of Godaan but also of Ajneya's own existentialist novel To Each His Stranger. One of Roadarmel's most lasting contributions, however, was his analytical evaluation of the nayi kahani or new short story movement in Hindi literature of the 1950s and 1960s, with its preoccupation with newly nuclear family households in the cities and the vexed union of man and woman which formed their center. His doctoral dissertation 'The Theme of Alienation in the Modern Hindi Short Story,' concerned itself with this topic. He did not live long enough to turn it into a book. But the short stories which he translated in the process were published in the fall of 1972 by the University of California Press, under the title A Death in Delhi, Modern Hindi Short Stories. (xvi)
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