Khushwant Singh

Khushwant Singh ( born February 2, 1915 in Hadali, Punjab, Pakistan today, † March 20, 2014 in New Delhi ) was an Indian writer and journalist. He wrote exclusively in English, and is known for its daring, candor, his humor and his love for poetry.

Life

Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 into a wealthy family. His father Sobha Singh was involved landowner and developer in Delhi and among other things, the construction of Lutyens ' Hauptstadtbauten. His uncle Ujjal Singh was politicians who held various ministerial posts in Punjab and was later governor of the Indian states of Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

Khushwant studied in Lahore, Cambridge and London. With a degree as a lawyer, he began practicing in Lahore before been offered in the Indian Foreign Ministry him a post. Disappointed by the activity in the ministry, he then worked as a journalist. He was editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India - the publication of the Times of India - and the English-language Indian daily newspaper The National Herald and the Hindustan Times. His essays and columns appeared regularly in several regional and national newspapers.

His books have been translated into many languages ​​and he has won prizes, for example, his most famous book Train to Pakistan (1954). In German translation of his novel Delhi was published in 1999 (originally published in 1989 ) and 2008 The train to Pakistan.

In his 2003 published by Penguin Books India book The End Of India he set a critical look at the Hindu fundamentalism.

Khushwant Singh was one of the most respected personalities of India. Padma Bhushan 1974, he was awarded, which he, however, in 1984 in protest against the military action by the Indira Gandhi government at the Golden Temple in Amritsar returned. From 1980 to 1986 Khushwant was for a term of a member of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament. In 2007 he received the Padma Vibhushan.

Works (selection)

• Paradise. German by Claudia Wenner. Dörlemann Verlag, Zurich 2006, ISBN 978-3-908777-23-6
• Kuldip Nayar with: Tragedy of Punjab: Operation Bluestar & After, South Asia, 1984, ISBN 978-0836412482