Chaman Nahal commonly known as C Nahal, and ''Chaman Nahal Azadi'', was an Indian born writer of English literature. He was widely considered one of the best exponents of Indian writing in English and is known for his work, ''Azadi'', which is set on India's Independence and her partition. He is also known for his depiction of Mahatma Gandhi as a complex character with human failings.

Life and career

Chaman Nahal was born in

Sialkot Sialkot (Punjabi language, Punjabi, ) is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of the Sialkot District and the List of most populous cities in Pakistan, 12th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined ...

, in pre-Independence India, a province in the present day

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

, in 1927. After having done his school education locally, he did his master's in English at

University of Delhi The Delhi University (DU, ISO 15919, ISO: ), also and officially known as the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate research university, research Central university (India), central university located in Delhi, India. It ...

in 1948. He continued his education as a British Council Scholar at

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

(1959–61) and obtained a PhD in English in 1961. While attaining his education, he worked as a lecturer (1949–1962). In 1962, he joined Rajasthan University, Jaipur as reader in English. The next year, he moved to New Delhi as professor of English at the University of New Delhi. He was a Fulbright fellow at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

and served as a visiting professor at various universities in the United States,

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

, Japan, Singapore, Canada and

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

. He was also a fellow at Cambridge College in 1991 and worked as columnist for the ''

Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language India, Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932 by P. Varadarajulu Naidu. It is headquartered in Noida, owned by the Indian Express Limited, ''Indian Express Group''. It was later taken over by Ramnat ...

'', writing a column talking about books from 1966 to 1973. He died on 29 November 2013 in New Delhi, India.

List of works

Novels Short story collection Uncollected short stories Others Bibliography In The New Literatures in English, 1985 Critical Studies on Chaman Nahal Memoir Children's novels

Literary review

Chaman Nahal's writings are known to talk about India without any touch of exoticism. ''Azadi'', his novel on the partition of India, is widely considered to be the best of the Indian-English novels written about the traumatic partition which accompanied Indian Independence in 1947 (Quoted from '’Train to Pakistan – Azadi : Vice-versa Journey'’ by Dr. Mangalkumar R. Patil). An autobiographical book, ''Silent Life'', was originally written in English and later translated into 12 languages, including Russian, Hungarian and Sinhalese.

Awards and honours

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nahal, Chaman 1927 births Indian male novelists Indian male short story writers English-language writers from India Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English 2013 deaths 20th-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian short story writers People from Sialkot District 20th-century Indian male writers