Godaan (Hindi: गोदान, gōdān, lit. Cow donation) is a Hindi novel by Munshi Premchand, translated into English as The Gift of a Cow.It was first published in 1936 and is considered one of the greatest Hindustani novels of modern Indian literature. Themed around the socio economic deprivation as well as the exploitation of the village poor, the novel was the last complete novel of Premchand. It was translated into English in 1957 by Jai Ratan and P.