Khushwant Singh

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Date of birth: 
01 Aug 1915
Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
City of birth: 
Hadali, Punjab
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Pakistan
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1934
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1934-9

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About: 

Khushwant Singh is a journalist and novelist. Born in a Sikh family in Punjab, Singh tells in his autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice, that his exact date of birth is not known but it was sometime in August 1915. His father was a building contractor in Delhi.

Following a degree from Government College, Lahore, Singh went to London in 1934 and registered for a LLB degree at King's College. He also enrolled at the Inner Temple. In his second year he lived in lodgings with English and Scottish students and then in his third year he lodged with Indians near Hampstead. Singh competed for the ICS but was unsuccessful. Following his success in the LLB exams he returned to India and was called to the Bar in abstentia.

Upon return to India in 1939, Singh set up a law practice in Lahore but he gave this up seven years later. He left Lahore in 1947 in the face of partition riots. Through the Indian Ministry of External Affairs he was appointed to a job in public relations at India House, London, and then worked in Canada. He then joined the All-India Radio and Singh became a full time writer, editing journals, writing novels and political commentary. He remains a popular journalist today (2010).

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Published works: 

The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories (1950)

Train to Pakistan (London: Chatto & Windus, 1956)

The Voice of God and Other Stories (1957)

I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (London: Calder, 1958)

The Sikhs Today (1959)

The Fall of the Kingdom of the Punjab (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1962)

Ranjit Singh: The Maharajah of the Punjab (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962)

Ghadar 1915: India's First Armed Revolution (New Delhi: R & K Publishing House, 1966)

A History of the Sikhs (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966)

A Bride for the Sahib and Other Stories (New Delhi: Orient, 1967)

Black Jasmine (1971)

Tragedy of Punjab (1984)

Delhi: A Novel (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1990)

Sex, Scotch and Scholarship: Selected Writings (1992)

Not a Nice Man to Know: The Best of Khushwant Singh (1993)

We Indians (1993)

Women and Men in My Life (1995)

Uncertain Liaisons; Sex, Strife and Togetherness in Urban India (1995)

Train to Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998)

The Company of Women (New Delhi: Viking, 1999)

A History of the Sikhs: 1469-1838 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Truth, Love and a Little Malice: An Autobiography (New Delhi: Viking, 2002)

The End of India (2003)

Burial at the Sea (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004)

Paradise and Other Stories (New Delhi: Penguin, 2004)

Death at My Doorstep (2005)

A History of the Sikhs: 1839-2004 (2005)

The Illustrated History of the Sikhs (2006)

Why I Supported the Emergency: Essays and Profiles (2009)