Train to Pakistan
Introduction
ONE OF THE MOST BRUTAL EPISODES IN THE PLANET'S HISTORY, IN WHICH A MILLION MEN, WOMEN,AND CHILDREN WERE KILLED AND TEN MILLION WERE DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES ANDBELONGINGS, IS NOW OVER HALF A CENTURY OLD.PARTITION, A EUPHEMISM FOR THE BLOODY VIOLENCE THAT PRECEDED THE BIRTH OF INDIA ANDPAKISTAN AS THE BRITISH HURRIEDLY HANDED OVER POWER IN 1947, IS BECOMING A FADING WORDIN THE HISTORY BOOKS. FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS WILL SOON VANISH. KHUSHWANT SINGH, WHO WASOVER THIRTY AT THE TIME, LATER WROTE TRAIN TO PAKISTAN AND GOT IT PUBLISHED IN 1956.REPRINTED SINCE THEN, REISSUED IN HARDCOVER, AND TRANSLATED INTO MANY LANGUAGES, THE NOVEL IS NOW KNOWN AS A CLASSIC, ONE OF THE FINEST AND BEST-KNOWN TREATMENTS OF THE SUBJECT.
About the author
Khushwant Singh, one of the best -known Indian writers of all times, was born in 1915 in Hadali (now in Pakistan).He was educated at the Government College, Lahore and at King's College, Cambridge University, and the Inner Temple in London. He practiced law at the Lahore High Court for several years before joining the Indian Ministryof External Affairs in 1947. Among the several works he published are a classic two-volume history of the Sikhs,several novels (the best known of which are Delhi,Train to Pakistan, and The company of women), and a number of translations and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs. The Library of Congress has ninety-nineworks on and by Khushwant Singh.
Setting
Khushwant Singh recreates a tiny village in the Punjabi countryside and its people in that fateful summer.When the flood of refugees and the inter-communal bloodletting from Bengal to the Northwest Frontier at last touches them, many ordinary men and women are bewildered, victimized, and torn apart. Plot
It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, avillage on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion fallsupon
ONE OF THE MOST BRUTAL EPISODES IN THE PLANET'S HISTORY, IN WHICH A MILLION MEN, WOMEN,AND CHILDREN WERE KILLED AND TEN MILLION WERE DISPLACED FROM THEIR HOMES ANDBELONGINGS, IS NOW OVER HALF A CENTURY OLD.PARTITION, A EUPHEMISM FOR THE BLOODY VIOLENCE THAT PRECEDED THE BIRTH OF INDIA ANDPAKISTAN AS THE BRITISH HURRIEDLY HANDED OVER POWER IN 1947, IS BECOMING A FADING WORDIN THE HISTORY BOOKS. FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS WILL SOON VANISH. KHUSHWANT SINGH, WHO WASOVER THIRTY AT THE TIME, LATER WROTE TRAIN TO PAKISTAN AND GOT IT PUBLISHED IN 1956.REPRINTED SINCE THEN, REISSUED IN HARDCOVER, AND TRANSLATED INTO MANY LANGUAGES, THE NOVEL IS NOW KNOWN AS A CLASSIC, ONE OF THE FINEST AND BEST-KNOWN TREATMENTS OF THE SUBJECT.
About the author
Khushwant Singh, one of the best -known Indian writers of all times, was born in 1915 in Hadali (now in Pakistan).He was educated at the Government College, Lahore and at King's College, Cambridge University, and the Inner Temple in London. He practiced law at the Lahore High Court for several years before joining the Indian Ministryof External Affairs in 1947. Among the several works he published are a classic two-volume history of the Sikhs,several novels (the best known of which are Delhi,Train to Pakistan, and The company of women), and a number of translations and non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs. The Library of Congress has ninety-nineworks on and by Khushwant Singh.
Setting
Khushwant Singh recreates a tiny village in the Punjabi countryside and its people in that fateful summer.When the flood of refugees and the inter-communal bloodletting from Bengal to the Northwest Frontier at last touches them, many ordinary men and women are bewildered, victimized, and torn apart. Plot
It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, avillage on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion fallsupon