National biography

Kartar Singh Duggal was born in Dhamal, Rawalpindi District (now in Pakistan). He is married to Ayesha Duggal. He received an M.A. degree in English from Forman Christian College in Lahore. In 1942, Duggal worked for All India Radio (AIR). He was station director, and he wrote and produced programmes in Punjabi and other languages. During this time, he also wrote many plays. In 1966, he left AIR to become the Secretary/Director of the National Book Trust of India. In 1973, he became an Information Advisor at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. In 1984 he was nominated Fellow of the Punjabi University. In 1997 he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha (Indian Parliament Upper House). Over the course of his career, Duggal has published twenty four collections of short stories, ten novels, seven plays, seven works of literary criticism, two poetry collections and an autobiography. His works have been translated into Indian and foreign languages.