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Khushwant Singh
(1915-)

Active: 1950- in India, South Asia

By Aali Areefur Rehman (Rajshahi University)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: India, South Asia
  • Born In: India, South Asia
  • Activity: Novelist, Story Writer, Historian, Autobiographer, Editor, Essayist, Journalist, Member of Parliament, Politician, Political Writer, Translator

Life, Works and Times

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Khushwant Singh published his first volume of short fiction in 1950, three years after India’s independence, and since then has become one of the country’s best known writers in English. Like R.K. Narayan before him, and unlike some of his younger contemporaries, he never permanently left his country to become an expatriate, and has continued to reside and work in India, principally in Delhi, the city in which he grew up and which (together with his native Punjab province) has figured in much of his writing. Beginning as a writer of fiction, he went on to gain distinction as a historian, translator and journalist. Over his long life, indeed, he has spent time in a number of other professions, including law, diplomacy, radio broadcasting

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First published 11 March 2004

Citation: Rehman, Aali Areefur. "Khushwant Singh". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 March 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4089, accessed 9 February 2010.]